Frequency domain damage detection of plate and shell structures by finite element model updating

Plate- and shell-like elements are the main constituent of many engineering structures such as ships and airplanes. This paper develops a frequency domain model updating method using power spectral density function and seeks its viability in damage identification of plates and shells. The derivation of the sensitivity equation is exact and measured natural frequencies of few lower modes are used to overcome the drawbacks of incomplete measurement. The method is numerically examined in several damage cases. The robustness of method against measurement and mass modelling error is numerically assessed using Monte-Carlo analysis and numerically simulated error contaminated data. The method proves to be robust against both kind of errors and performs well, both in cases of plate and shell elements.