Most civil engineering structures, such as bridges, buildings, power plants and offshore structures are susceptible to structural damage and deterioration over their service lives due to the adverse loads such as operating loads, winds, waves, earthquakes, etc. Consequently, accumulation of undetected and unrepaired structural damages over a long period of time can lead to catastrophic structural failure. Thus, numerous damage detection methods and monitoring procedures have been developed. Examples include dye penetration, acoustic emission, ultrasonics, x-ray, structural tests, and visual inspection. However, most of those except structural tests are restricted to local defects and are very much time consuming.
Damage detection methods using structural tests can be divided into two methods, i.e., static and dynamic. The static methods which use the stiffness properties of the structure are simpler than the dynamic methods. However, static approaches are very sensitive to the measurement noises and modeling errors. The dynamic methods also have limitations in acquiring the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the high frequencies.
In this study, a new method for the structural damage assessment is developed, in which the drawbacks of the static and dynamic methods can be overcome. Based on the measurement data for the static displacements and dynamic modal properties, the damage locations and the degree of damage are determined using the sensitivity matrix method. The efficiency of the proposed method has been examined through numerical simulation studies on truss type structures.
