Structural Damage Detection Using Dynamic Properties Determined from Laboratory and Field Testing

Studies have shown that experimentally determined dynamic properties can be used to identify the characteristics of a structure. In this paper, a damage detection technique is developed and demonstrated using system identification, finite-element modeling, and a modal update process. The proposed approach, SFM, provides a rapid estimate of damage locations and magnitudes. The proposed methodology is applied to three case studies. The first is a numerical simulation using computer generated data. The second is an ASCE benchmark problem for structural health monitoring, where the results can be compared to other researchers. The third is a full-scale highway bridge that was field tested using a forced vibration shaking machine. In this case study, the bridge was shaken in several states of damage and the proposed methodology was utilized to detect and determine the location and extent of the damage. It was found that, using the collected data, the SFM approach was able to consistently predict the location of damage as well as estimate the magnitude of the damage.