Damage detection in CFRP composite beams based on vibration analysis using proper orthogonal decomposition method with radial basis functions and cuckoo search algorithm

This paper presents a new fast approach for crack identification using vibration analysis based on model reduction using proper orthogonal decomposition method with radial basis function (POD-RBF). The method is formulated as an inverse problem for detecting the position, length and depth of crack in Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite structures, where Genetic and Cuckoo search algorithms are used to minimize the cost function based on numerical and experimental natural frequencies. The results show that the POD-RBF combined with Cuckoo search algorithm is an efficient and a feasible methodology of predicting the width, depth and position of double rectangular notches in CFRP beams. The stability of this technique is tested by introducing a white Gaussian noise in the frequencies data input. The results show that the proposed approach is stable when the noise level is lower than 6%.