In this paper, an enhanced vibration-based damage diagnostic approach for the identification of subtle cracks under changing environmental conditions is proposed using modal parameters. The ratio of the frequency of the damaged structure to the undamaged structure between the two modes is proposed as a damage-sensitive feature for damage detection. Besides, the proposed work uses the traditional mode shape difference-based index integrated with Katz Fractal Dimension as a damage localization index to find the geometric location of damage present anywhere in the structure. The values of the damage localization index are related to the severity of the damage. Numerical studies performed on simple beam-like structures validated the capability of the proposed technique in identifying subtle damages even using noisy measurements.
Keywords
- Structural health monitoring
- Damage localization
- Mode shapes
- Sinha crack model
- Katz fractal dimension