Damage Identification of Truss Structures Based on Vibratory Data

The present paper shows a damage identification method of truss structures using a flexibility matrix which can be constructed from several low degrees of natural vibration frequencies and modes. The damage location in truss structures is detected from the change of the axial strain component in each truss member under virtual load before and after damage. The present method is verified through numerical examples of plane truss structures. We examine the effect of several factors on the identification of damage location, i.e., the effect of the number of vibration modes, the number of measurement degrees of freedom and measurement errors.