A Novel VBSHM Strategy to Identify Geometrical Damage Properties Using Only Frequency Changes and Damage Library

Abstract

Vibration-based structural health monitoring is an efficient way to diagnose damage and structural integrity at the earliest stage. In this paper, a new strategy is developed for damage localization and estimation, as well as damage properties identification for a rectangular geometry damage using only eigenfrequencies of the healthy and damaged structure. This strategy is applied to a cantilever beam. In this framework, a damage library is built by correlating 2D and 3D finite element models. The correlation is done by minimizing a so-called frequency shift coefficient. The proposed strategy also uses the frequency shift coefficient to correlate a 2D damaged model with an unknown beam case. The 2D damage, represented by a bending stiffness reduction, is then associated to a 3D damage by employing the damage library. Numerical cases with single and double damage of varying position and severity are tested and used to validate the approach. Finally, experimental results are proposed that show the relevance of the strategy.