Numerical investigation of a new damage detection method based on proper orthogonal decomposition

The paper presents a new idea for detecting and locating damage in structures by applying concepts derived from the theory of proper orthogonal decomposition. The idea is investigated by simulating tests on two beams and provides promising results. The effect of noise on the performance of the detection method is taken into account in the simulations. The paper paves the way to an experimental application of the newly proposed method.