21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-4.3.2

STRUCTURAL DAMAGE DETECTION USING BEST ACHIEVABLE "MODAL" EIGENVECTORS

Ricci S.
Milan Polytechnical University, Italy

Keywords: structural damage detection, "modal" eigenvectors

The paper reports a modal formulation of the original method presented by Lim and Kashangaky, based on the use of the Best Achievable Eigenvectors in damage detection problems. The method requires the measurement of both frequencies and mode shapes. The structural damage is located by computing the Euclidean distances between the measured mode shapes and the best achievable 'modal' eigenvectors. The method is able to detect loss of both stiffness and mass properties, even though in this paper only the loss of stiffness will be analysed. Two numerical examples are reported to investigate the applicability of the modal formulation. Finally, an experimental validation is also included, using a ten-bay truss laboratory structure.

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