Proceedings of the ASME 2015 Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems

SMASIS2015
September 21-23, 2015, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

SMASIS2015-9054

STRUCTURAL ASSESSMENT AND DAMAGE IDENTIFICATION ALGORITHMS

USING BINARY DATA

Hadi Salehi1 Saptarshi Das2 Shantanu Chakrabartty2 Subir Biswas2 Rigoberto Burgueño1

1 Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; 2 Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

ABSTRACT the monitored structure and analysis of the measurements for

One of the challenges in structural health monitoring (SHM)
is the power required for sensors to collect and communicate
data. Self-powered sensors are able to harvest power by from
their environment, i.e., strain and vibration of the host structure.
However, the harvested power with current technology is still
limited and improving the system’s efficiency requires reducing
the power budget. A way to minimize the communication power
demand is to transmit the minimum amount of information,
namely one bit. The binary signal can be generated at a sensor
node according to a local rule based on physical measurements,
but interpretation at the global level requires dealing with
discrete binary (1 or 0) data, which implies system information
with reduced resolution. This study presents an investigation on
approaches for the interpretation of such kind of binary data for
use in structural assessment and damage identification. Pattern
recognition (PR) methods based on image data analysis were
adapted for the study. The methods used were classifiers based
on deviation of patterns with respect to each other, two-
dimensional principal component analysis, and two-dimensional
linear discriminant analysis. The PR methods and the
performance of the interpretation algorithms were evaluated by
using virtual data from finite element simulations on an
aluminum plate. The ability for each of the PR methods to
identify service demands, load variations and localized material
degradation was evaluated. Results indicate that PR methods can
be used as damage identification algorithms for binary data sets
in novel wireless self-powered sensor networks.
INTRODUCTION
Structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage detection
has become an important issue in many fields such as civil,
mechanical and aerospace engineering. Although SHM is a
broad research area, SHM methods that can detect and localize
of damages have been the subject of much study [1-5]. SHM can
be attained by collecting data from a sensor network installed on
structural condition assessment. Several studies have been
carried out to develop appropriate algorithms to extract critical
structural information from measured data [6-8]. Many SHM
algorithms are based on natural frequency analyses that assess
damage from changes in the natural frequencies of the structure.
For this purpose, traditional SHM methods such as wavelet
transform or vibration control techniques deal with continuous
data that are physically based [9-12]. In other words, these
methods are based on the availability of continuous time-history
data from sensors distributed over the host structure.
The energy required for measuring and sensing data is a
crucial challenge in SHM. The required energy budget becomes
even more important when it is used for communication between
different sensor nodes. Several researchers have studied the use
of smart materials and wirelessly networked sensors for
embedded monitoring in SHM [13-15]. A limitation is that the
operating life of battery-powered sensors is limited by their
battery life. On the other hand, replacing the batteries of
structure-embedded sensors is major issue [16,17]. Embedded
sensors in passive battery-less sensing system do not need
energy, although the disadvantage of these sensors is their
limited communication range [18,19]. Self-powered sensors
have recently become a reality by overcoming the gap between
the achievable scavenged energy and the energy required for
sensing, computing and communication [20,21]. Self-powered
sensors are thus able to directly harvest the required
computational, storage and transmission power from the signal
being sensed. Chakrabartty et al. [22-24] introduced a self-
powering SHM device that exploits the properties of ceramic and
polymer based piezoelectric materials to generate large open-
source voltage, and demonstrated that self-powered sensors are
able to use their environments to generate the demand power.
Communication, processing, and buffering overheads of the
large number of bits within data packets may lead to energy-
inefficiency for event sensing with conventional communication

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 protocols. In this regard, the concept of pulse switching for static
event sensing in sensor networks was introduced by Biswas et al.
[25-29]. This technology consists of an energy-efficient pulse
switching for ultra-weight wireless network applications, which
has been demonstrated as an effective means for minimizing the
energy communication demand in a sensor network. For this
purpose, event localization can be combined with the pulse
switching protocol. Events can be localized by a receiver by
observing the temporal position of a received pulse with respect
to a reference frame. However, pulse based communication
decreases the available information to a binary format and this
leads to received information to be discrete and time-based
binary at the SHM processor.
Pulse switching is an energy-light data networking paradigm
in which the location and occurrence of a binary sensing event
can be communicated across small-to-medium scale networks of
wireless sensing devices [26]. The primary advantage of pulse
switching is the considerable energy savings in terms of
transmission energy cost when compared to other traditional
approaches such as packet switching. The energy savings arise
from the fact that pulse switching uses a minimal number of
pulses to represent the event location and forwarding
information and provides reliable event delivery characteristics
with no additional overhead such as preamble information. The
latter is often the largest contributor to transmission energy cost
in packet switching and might turn out to be much larger than the
actual information, which is binary in this case and hence only a
single bit in length. Pulse switching trades off delivery delay to
transmit the information at very low energies. It
represents the information to be communicated as a specific
temporal pulse pattern with respect to a synchronized frame
structure thus encoding the location and forwarding information.
The higher delivery delay can be accommodated in several
applications that do not need real-time event delivery and can
accept delivery delays within a range, but where energy savings
are crucial. An energy aware version of the pulse switching
approach has been developed [30] and shown to be especially
useful in networks of devices powered by erratic harvested
energy sources. The latter protocol introduces efficient power
management principles to modulate the operation of pulse
switching in accordance with the energy availability in the sensor
devices for optimal operation in energy harvested devices.
The interpretation of discrete binary data over a domain
resembles a pattern recognition (PR) problem. Therefore, binary
data generated through a pulse communication protocol can be
evaluated through PR methods. In other words, binary data can
be interpreted by PR methods based on image data analysis
concepts. PR methods have achieved extensive attention for
SHM applications in order to detect changes in a structure they
have been identified as a promising set of methods related to
system identification for structural damage evaluation [31,32].
Kiremidjian et al. [33] demonstrated that a damage detection
algorithm based on a pattern classification framework can detect
structural changes caused by damage in a bridge structure.
Trendafilova et al. [34] developed a viable methodology for
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damage detection in an aircraft wing based on principal
component analysis and a simple pattern recognition method.
In contrast with traditional SHM techniques, this study deals
with the development of global interpretation algorithms for
damage identification using discrete binary data that is not
continuously available in time (Fig. 1). The type of integrated
SHM sensor considered for this study is based on the self-
powered sensors. The proposed damage identification
methodology is based purely on PR methods. Different PR
methods based on image data analysis were examined for this
purpose and used for data interpretation and pattern
identification. The methodology was evaluated using the
vibration response of an aluminum plate structure simulated by
the finite element method.
Fig. 1. Discrete binary data vs. time
MODULATION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
The aim of this study is to develop global interpretation
algorithms based on discrete, time-based asynchronous binary
data generated by self-powered sensors. For this purpose, binary
events are generated following rules based on measurements at
a local level. Accordingly, the generated binary events were used
to interpret and investigate structural behavior at a global level.
It has been initially assumed that the system is able to operate
with full data availability, and the constraints of the
communication power budget for the embedded sensors and the
communication time delay were disregarded. In this way, the
proposed method can be examined for simulated binary data. A
simple finite element (FE) model of a simply supported
aluminum plate was used to simulate its vibration response.
Therefore, the input to the assessment algorithm is the structural
response according to an FE simulation. It was assumed that the
self-powered sensors were powered directly through strain-
variations in the substrate and had the ability to measure strain
and vibration. Once the amplitude of the input signal (strain or
vibration response of the plate) exceeds predefined threshold,
events are flagged and binary events are created.
Pattern Recognition Methods Explored
To reduce the effect of modelling errors, noise and
environmental variations on measured structural responses, the
PR paradigm can be incorporated into a damage detection
approach. For this purpose, PR methods such as a proposed
method based on deviation of patterns, a two-dimensional
principal component analysis (2DPCA), and a two-dimensional
linear discriminant analysis (2DLDA), together with use of the
nearest neighbor principle were used for pattern extraction and
classification. The PR methods were considered for this study
 were chosen due to type of data. In other words, binary data
generated from self-powered sensors can be interpreted through
PR methods based on image data analysis techniques. There are
several techniques for PR based on image data analysis concepts,
but only some of them were considered in this paper. In this
study, a proposed method based on deviation of patterns was
developed according to the image data analysis concept, while
2DPCA and 2DLDA are well-known methods for classification
and data representation in PR and image processing.
Method based on Deviation of Patterns. This method
is based on the deviation of patterns with respect to each other.
In this way, system is able to recognize the change in response
of structure through different shapes (patterns). For this purpose,
the deformed shape of the plate (pattern) in normal conditions
can be memorized. Accordingly, by applying load with different
harmonic amplitude or due to a change in material properties, a
classifier can recognize deviations from the memorized patterns
and identify new common patterns.
Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis.
Two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) is an
image feature extraction and data representation technique used
in the areas of pattern recognition and computer vision [35,36].
According to image processing methods, each image can be
shown as a matrix. Letting 𝑋 denote an n-dimensional unitary
column vector, the main idea is to project matrix (image) 𝐴, onto
𝑋 by the following linear transformation [35,36]:
𝑌 = 𝐴𝑋
where 𝑌is the projected feature vector of matrix 𝐴. The 2DPCA
method introduces the image covariance (scatter) matrix (𝐺𝑡 ),
which can be directly determined from the training datasets as
follows:
1
𝑆𝑡 = ∑𝑁 ̅𝑇
𝑖=1[𝐴(𝑖) − 𝐴] [𝐴(𝑖) − 𝐴]
̅ (2)
𝑁
where 𝐴(𝑖) (𝑖 = 1,2, … , 𝑁) is an 𝑚 × 𝑛 matrix and denotes
1
the ith training image, and 𝐴̅ = ∑𝑁 𝐴(𝑖) denotes the average
𝑁 𝑖=1
image of all training data. The optimal projection axes 𝑋1 , … , 𝑋𝑑
are the orthonormal eigenvectors of the image covariance matrix
( 𝑆𝑡 ) corresponding to the first 𝑑 largest eigenvalues.
Accordingly these optimal projection vectors 𝑋1 , … , 𝑋𝑑 were
used for feature extraction. For a given image sample 𝐴, the
principal components vectors 𝑌1 , … , 𝑌𝑑 are defined as follows:
𝑌𝑘 = 𝐴𝑋𝑘 , 𝑘 = 1, … 𝑑
A nearest neighbor classifier was used for classification after
the feature extraction step. For this purpose, a nearest neighbor
classifier is found on the basis of Euclidean distance.
Two-Dimensional Linear Discriminant Analysis.
Two-dimensional linear discriminant analysis (2DLDA) aims to
extract features that well discriminate a set of data that belongs
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to a number of classes [35,37]. Letting 𝐴 denote an 𝑚 × 𝑛
image, and 𝑋 denote an n-dimensional column vector, the main
idea is to project image 𝐴 , onto 𝑋 by the transformation
presented in (1). Considering that there are 𝐿 known pattern
classes in the training set, and M denotes the size of the training
set, the 2DLDA method introduces an image within-class matrix
𝑆𝑊 𝐼𝑀 and an image between-class scatter matrix 𝑆𝐵 𝐼𝑀 that can
be defined as follows [35,37]:
𝑆𝑊 𝐼𝑀 = ∑𝐿𝑖=1 ∑𝐴𝑘 ∈𝑇𝑖(𝐴𝑘 − 𝐴̅𝑖 )𝑇 (𝐴𝑘 − 𝐴̅𝑖 ) (4)
𝑆𝐵 𝐼𝑀 = ∑𝐿𝑖=1 𝑁𝑖 (𝐴̅𝑖 − 𝐴̅) 𝑇 (𝐴̅𝑖 − 𝐴̅) (5)
1
where, 𝐴̅𝑖 = ∑𝐴𝑘 ∈𝑇𝑖 𝐴𝑘 is the mean of the data matrices in
𝑁𝑖
1
class 𝑇𝑖 , and 𝐴̅ = ∑𝐿𝑖=1 ∑𝐴𝑘 ∈𝑇𝑖 𝐴𝑘 is the global mean matrix.
𝑁
Fisher optimal projection axes 𝑋1 , … , 𝑋𝑑 are the orthonormal
eigenvectors of 𝑆𝑊 −1 𝑆𝐵 corresponding to the first 𝑑 largest
eigenvalues. Accordingly, these optimal projection vectors and
the nearest neighbor classifier were used for feature extraction
and classification.
Methodology for Data Interpretation based on Pattern
Recognition
The aim of this study is to develop a computational
framework for SHM that relies entirely on discrete binary data.
Finite element (FE) simulation of an aluminum plate subjected
to cyclic loading was conducted using the program ABAQUS
[38]. In this regard, the distribution of sensors was considered as
(1) an image matrix. The main idea is that binary events create and
each sensor flags an event, once the strain or vibration response
of the plate exceeds predefined threshold. A view of the FE
model along with distribution of model output locations (i.e.,
simulated sensors) is shown in Fig. 2.
(3)
Fig. 2. Illustration of the arrangement of self-powered
sensors in the FE model
The FE model for the aluminum plate is shown in Fig. 3
together with representative transverse displacement responses
and maximum absolute strain values of strain at time t = 5 s. The
schematic simulation of proposed methodology used for data
3 Copyright © 2015 by ASME
 interpretation technique and event prediction algorithm based on
pattern recognition methods is illustrated in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3. FE analysis model: (a) Plate and loading, (b)
Transverse displacements (t = 5 s), (c) Maximum principal
strains (t =5 s)
Fig. 4. Framework of proposed methodology for data
interpretation
Multiple Binary Event Concept used for Pattern
Identification. Simple pilot-type local rules for binary event
generation were defined in terms of transverse displacements
and maximum principal strains at the sensor nodes and
introduced to the PR system. Plate response for normal operating
conditions need to be classified to identify changes.
Furthermore, in order to investigate the structure’s behavior due
to changes in loading condition or material degradation, it is
necessary to obtain different levels of response. For this purpose,
the concept of multiple binary events was introduced and used in
this study. This concept can be implemented in the substrate
communication technique through variations in frequency or
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time spacing of the communication pulse. At the sensor nodes it
is implemented by definiting different local event generation
rules. For this purpose, three thresholds (R1, R2, R3) were
defined. A schematic of the multiple binary concept and the
definition of local event generation rules is presented in Fig. 5.
It is worth mentioning that as a pilot test the considered
thresholds were simply based on displacement or strain
responses from the numerical simulation.
Fig. 5. Distribution of self-powered sensors on a plate and
the concept of multiple binary events
Finite Element Analysis based on the Variance in
Amplitude of Harmonic Load. The task was to investigate
the effect of a change in loading conditions on the response
patterns. For this purpose, once the load was applied the
deformed shape of the plate (pattern) was memorized and the
system could recognize the change in response of structure
through different shapes (patterns). Three different arbitrary
displacement values were considered as thresholds to evaluate
the plate’s behavior due to changes in loading. The finite element
(FE) simulations were prepared according to different loading
magnitudes. Dynamic analyses were performed for 5 sec and the
measurement parameter were displacement normal to the plate
surface. A uniformly distributed load (Fig. 3) with harmonic
amplitudes (Fig. 6) was considered. The resulting transverse
displacement at the FE output locations (i.e., simulated sensor
nodes) were provided as input to the proposed model to
recognize the most common patterns. Additional FE analyses
were conducted for a distributed load with harmonic variation
along with random noise (Fig. 6).
Finite Element Analysis based on the Localized
Decrease in Material Properties. Damage was simulated in
the FE model by gradually reducing the stiffness (elastic
modulus) with time. Dynamic analyses were performed for 5
seconds and strains were the measured criteria. Maximum
 principal strains were considered as thresholds. Accordingly,
strains from the virtual sensor nodes were introduced to the PR
algorithm. The response of a plate with uniform stiffness was
first memorized. Once the stiffness was locally decreased the PR
algorithm was used to successfully identify new patterns. The FE
model for the plate with the region of reduced stiffness and the
maximum absolute values of strain based on a 40% reduction in
stiffness for the 5th sec of analysis are presented in Fig. 7.
Fig. 6. Harmonic amplitudes used for dynamic loading
Fig. 7. Evaluating effects from localized stiffness reduction:
(a) Maximum absolute strains (t = 5 s) based on 40%
stiffness reduction, (b) FE plate model with reduced
stiffness element
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The proposed damage detection technique based on
different pattern recognition (PR) methods was examined. The
effect of change in loading condition on structural assessment
and event prediction was investigated as well as change in
material properties of the plate. As previously mentioned, the
input to the computational model (dataset) was the structural
response according to the FE analysis. A custom program in the
Matlab [39] platform was used for implementing the different
pattern recognitions techniques. Furthermore, k-means
clustering along with the nearest neighbor classifier were
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considered to classify patterns from the training data for the PR
method based on two-dimensional principal component analysis
and two-dimensional linear discriminant analysis.
Harmonic amplitudes with different noise levels (Fig. 6)
were considered for several FE analysis and obtained results
were used to evaluate the algorithms. In this way, the proposed
algorithms were assessed for the effects of signal noise. It was
determined that the system has acceptable performance with
respect to variations due to noise. However, performance of the
system can be affected by higher levels of noise.
Results based on the Change in Loading Condition
This section presents results based on the variance in loading
condition.
Results based on the Deviation of Patterns. For the
proposed pattern recognition methodology, the distribution of
virtual self-powered sensors was considered as an image matrix.
Finite element analyses were carried out for 5 seconds with a
time step of 0.01 s; therefore, the dataset size was 500. Three
arbitrary displacement values corresponding to the structural
response of the plate were assumed as a threshold in order to
recognize the normal plate response. In this way, 4 regions
related to the different levels of displacement responses of sensor
nodes were established (Regions 1 to 4). It should be noted that
regions 1 and 4 represented the structural response
corresponding to the least and maximum displacement,
respectively. For the proposed classifier and using multiple
binary event generation concept (Fig. 5), the proposed method
could identify 3 common patterns according to Load #1.
Common patterns recognized by the system are shown in Fig. 8.
The different colors represent the plate’s response based on the
measurement/output at the sensor nodes.
Fig. 8. Common patterns identified by the system based on
load#1
The definition of multiple thresholds (shown in Fig. 5) can
be used to realize and interpret the different regions in Fig. 8. In
this way, inactive sensor (white) denote that the displacement
response of that region of the plate does not exceed the
 predefined threshold R1; while a yellow region means that the
displacement response of the plate exceeds threshold R2 but it is
less than threshold R3. Table 1 presents the number of
occurrences of each pattern within the entire dataset.

Table 1. Number of occurrences of patterns based on

load#1.
Number of occurences
Percentage
of patterns
Class (Pattern) 1 133 27%
Class (Pattern) 2 57 11%
Class (Pattern) 3 278 56%

Results obtained based on distributed load with harmonic

amplitude and random noise (Load #2) is shown in Fig. 6. The
proposed system could identify 21 patterns (18 new patterns with
respect to the 3 memorized patterns based on Load #1). The Fig. 10. Frequency of new recognized patterns for Load #2
distribution of 10 patterns (from the set of 21 new patterns) with
respect to the time at which they were identified is presented in
Fig. 9. The frequency histogram of these patterns is illustrated in
Fig. 10. It should be noted that 15 of the 21 new patterns with a
low number of occurrences were disregarded by the system and
only 3 patterns were considered by the system as new memorized
patterns. Accordingly, these new identified patterns were used
for comparison with new input patterns.

Fig. 11. Response of sensor nodes based on discrete

binary events (for 3 consecutive time steps & the envelope
of these steps according to load#2)

Results based on the 2DPCA Method. Feature

Fig. 9. Distribution of new recognized patterns with respect
to time according to Load #2
Spatial-temporal integration of binary events based on the
discrete data was determined for Load #2. Results are provided
for 3 consecutive time steps of the dynamic analysis along with
an envelope of these steps in Fig. 11. This figure presents the
creation of binary events with respect to the virtual sensor
locations for different analysis time steps. In other words, the
figure shows that variations in the response of sensor nodes due
to load variation can be recognized.
extraction was performed according to the 2DPCA method for
determining feature matrices according for Load #1.
Accordingly, k-means clustering was used to identify the initial
patterns required for classification. For this purpose, by means
of the 2DPCA method and assuming predefined thresholds
(displacement), three different classes were identified from the
possible patterns (Table 1). Once Load #2 was applied, new
inputs were provided to the proposed algorithm and a nearest
neighbor criterion was used for classification. One of the
advantages of this method is that it can successfully overcome
the complexity of the existing noise of the system. It means that
the patterns were classified regardless of noise due to different
loading condition. Table 2 present the number of patterns
classified for each of classes according to Load #2.

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 Table 2. Number of pattern occurrences based in 2DPCA stiffness reduction leads to change in patterns, and this variation
Method for Load #2. is at the same location as the element with reduced stiffness in
Number of pattern the FE model.
Percentage
occurences An attempt was also made to link the binary events to
Class (Pattern) 1 150 34 % physical structural parameters. A preliminary result of this effort
Class (Pattern) 2 34 8% is shown in Fig. 14, which qualitatively shows the behavior of
Class (Pattern) 3 258 58 % the plate as determined from the interpolation of discrete binary
events. In this way, physical behavior of the plate based on
Results based on the 2DLDA Method. Feature binary data could be examined.
extraction was performed according to the 2DLDA method for
determining the Fisher feature matrices for Load #1. As for the
2DPCA method, k-means clustering was used to identify the
initial patterns (Table 1). Accordingly, a nearest neighbor
criterion was used to recognize and classify patterns once Load
#2 was applied. The number of patterns classified for each of the
three memorized classes is presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Number of pattern occurrences based on 2DLDA

Method for Load #2.
Number of pattern
Percentage
occurences
Class (Pattern) 1 120 27 %
Class (Pattern) 2 37 8%
Class (Pattern) 3 283 64 %

Results based on the change in Material Properties

This section provides results for the case of a localized Fig. 12. Distribution of new recognized patterns with
decreased in material properties. respect to the time based on a localized 40% reduction in
stiffness
Results based on the Deviation of Patterns.
Distributed damage was introduced to the proposed system by
reducing the elastic modulus to a region of the plate in the FE
model. Three strain levels were assumed as thresholds. The
distributed load with harmonic amplitude (Fig. 6) was applied
and common patterns were identified as the stiffness of the
critical region was gradually gradually reduced. However,
results are provided for 40% of stiffness reduction. Table 4
presents the number of occurrences of each pattern within the
entire 500 data for a stiffness reduction of 40%. The distribution
of new patterns with respect to time is shown in Fig. 12.

Table 4. Number of pattern occurrences for a constant

stiffness.
Number of pattern
Percentage
occurences
Class (Pattern) 1 283 65 %
Class (Pattern) 2 106 24 %
Class (Pattern) 3 23 5%
Class (Pattern) 4 22 5%

Spatial-temporal integration of the binary events based on

the discrete data was determined for the case of 40% stiffness
reduction. Results are provided in Fig. 13 for three consecutive Fig. 13. Response of sensor nodes based on discrete
binary events for 3 consecutive time steps and the
time steps of the dynamic analysis along with an envelope of
envelope of these steps based on a localized 40% reduction
these steps. It can be seen that the effect of material degradation in stiffness
on response of the sensor nodes is noticeable. In other words,

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 Fig. 14. Response of sensor nodes based on the interpolation of discrete binary events for 3 consecutive time steps & the
envelope of these steps based on a localized 40% reduction stiffness

Connection between Identified Patterns and

Structural Parameters of the Plate. The aim of this section
is to present a preliminary effort to establish a connection
between recognized patterns and structural properties. For this
purpose, the plate’s flexural rigidity was considered and assessed
through the localized change in elastic modulus. In this regard,
three different displacement values were assumed as thresholds
for investigating the behavior of the sensor nodes with respect to
their neighbors. Patterns based on the responses at the virtual
sensor nodes with a constant stiffness were determined due to
Load #1. Displacements at the sensor nodes were provided as
input to the pattern recognition algorithm. Accordingly, the
elastic modulus for one section of the plate was decreased from
20% up to 90% through the FE simulations.
The frequency of recognized patterns with respect to the
stiffness reduction are illustrated in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16 for
modulus reductions of 30% and 80%, respectively The Fig. 15. Frequency of patterns with respect to a localized
frequency of new recognized patterns due to an 80% decrease in stiffness reduction (up to 30% decrease)
Young modulus is presented in Fig. 17. As observed from results,
Pattern 2 is completely insensintive to the stiffness reduction.
However, Patterns 1 and 3 depend on the stiffness reduction
since the frequency of these patterns almost tends to zero with
increased stiffness reduction. Accordinlgy, new patterns were
recognized by the PR algorithm as the localized stiffness
decreases.

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Fig. 16. Frequency of patterns with respect to a localized
stiffness reduction (up to 80% decrease)
Fig. 17. Frequency of new recognized patterns with respect
to a localized stiffness reduction (up to 80% decrease)
CONCLUSIONS
This study investigated damage identification algorithms
using discrete binary data. The proposed damage identification
methodology was based on pattern recognition (PR) methods.
PR methods based on image data analysis techniques were
adapted for this study and used for data interpretation and pattern
identification. Finite element (FE) simulations were used to
generate virtual experimental data in order to evaluate the
proposed method. Simple pilot-type local rules for binary event
generation were defined in terms of displacements and strains at
the virtual sensor nodes in the FE models, and their response was
provided as input to the PR algorithms. Results indicate that
proposed PR method based on deviation of patterns can
successfully recognize patterns due to variance in the amplitude
of load and on material stiffness. Moreover, 2DPCA and 2DLDA
methods were found to be effective techniques for the PR
problem. According to the obtained the 2DLDA method had
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better a performance because this method deals directly with
discrimination between classes, whereas the 2DPCA deals with
the data in its entirety for the principal components analysis.
Furthermore, obtained results show that PR methods can be used
as damage identification algorithms based on binary data sets.
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