Structural damage identification based on residual force vector and response sensitivity analysis

Abstract

A two-stage approach based on residual force vector and response sensitivity analysis is proposed for structural damage identification in this study. Local damage is represented by a perturbation in the elemental stiffness parameter of the structural finite element model. Primarily, the difference between the virtual residual force vector of an intact and damaged structure is used to localize the damage. Then, a response sensitivity-based method is adopted to identify the perturbation of the stiffness parameter (i.e., the extent of the local damage) from the measured dynamic responses. Numerical simulations are conducted to identify both single and multiple structural damages under sinusoidal or impulsive excitation. The proposed approach gives satisfactory results with artificial measurement noise.