Damage identification in beam type structures based on statistical moment using a two step method

This paper defines a novel damage index-strain statistical moment, and formulates the fourth strain statistical moment (FSSM) of beam-type structures under white noise excitation. Based on this newly defined strain statistical moment index and the least square optimization algorithm, a two-step damage identification method is proposed. This two-step method is operated like this: first use the difference curves of FSSMs before and after damage to locate damage elements; then for those identified damage elements, employ the model updating method based on the least square algorithm to assess their damage severity. Numerical studies on a simply supported beam and a two-span continuous beam are performed and the study results show that the newly defined index is effective to locate damages, even when the noise intensity is as high as 15 percent. Integrating with the least square-based model updating technique, the damage severities of beam-type structures can also be determined quantitatively. In this way, the proposed two-step method is verified and found to be capable of identifying damage positions and severities of beam-type structures and insensitive to measurement noise.