Enhanced optimization-based structural damage detection method using modal strain energy and modal frequencies

To identify the location and severity of structural damages precisely, a two-stage damage detection method is proposed here. In the first stage, the most probable elements that maybe damaged are determined using the modal strain energy concept of structure. For such purpose, an efficient modal strain energy conversion-based index is proposed. In the second stage, the structural damage identification problem is defined as an optimization problem that to be solved by a modified genetic algorithm. In the optimization problem, the damage extents of structure’s elements which are determined in the previous stage are considered as the variables. An efficient objective function considering the first few modal frequencies of the structure, before and after damage occurrence, is utilized for optimization. The robustness of the proposed method is assessed by several benchmark examples. The numerical results exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed method for precisely determining the location and severity of multiple structural damages.