2023 年 89 巻 919 号 p. 22-00332
In recent years, the aging of power plants and other infrastructure facilities has become an issue. Therefore, a health-monitoring technology has attracted attention in order to ensure the integrity of structures. An inverse analysis is conducted to estimate the size and position of cracks in this technology. The accuracy of the inverse analysis is dependent on the form of the objective function and the optimization calculation method. Generally, optimization calculation methods using the gradient of the objective function is adopted. However, it is known to have the drawback that the search solution strongly depends on the initial value setting. The biomimetics-based cuckoo optimization algorithm (COA) is a method that can overcome this drawback. However, there are few examples of estimating the crack size and position in structures using the COA. In this study, an inverse analysis method is developed to estimate the crack angle and position of circumferential through-wall crack in pipes. In this study, transfer matrix method (TMM) was utilized to numerically calculate the deformation and rotation angle of the pipe, which are required in the inverse analysis. For this purpose, the fundamental theory of the TMM was extended to the element with a through-wall crack. Consequently, it was confirmed that the crack angle, position and magnitude of the applied shear load can be accurately estimated by the developed method.
