Structural damage assessment using damage locating vector with limited sensors

Abstract

The damage locating vector (DLV) method based on dynamic response is (a) modified for structural damage detection using normalized cumulative energy (instead of stress) indicator, (b) applied to the case where the number of sensors used is small compared to the structural degrees of freedom, and (c) employed to identify multiple damaged elements of an existing structure. From the measured structural dynamic response at the reference and damaged states, the change in flexibility matrix at sensor locations is formulated based on which the DLV is calculated. The DLV is a set of static load vector which has the property that when applied to the structure at its reference state, no energy is induced in the damaged elements providing the basis to identify damaged elements. The efficiency and robustness of the proposed method are examined using both simulated and experimental data.