Vibration-based Damage Detection of Structures

by Genetic Algorithm
Hong Hao, M.ASCE,1 and Yong Xia2

Abstract: Vibration-based methods are being rapidly applied to detect structural damage. The usual approaches incorporate sensitivity
analysis and the optimization algorithm to minimize the discrepancies between the measured vibration data and the analytical data.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

However, conventional optimization methods are gradient based and usually lead to a local minimum only. Genetic algorithms explore the
region of the whole solution space and can obtain the global optimum. In this paper, a genetic algorithm with real number encoding is
applied to identify the structural damage by minimizing the objective function, which directly compares the changes in the measurements
before and after damage. Three different criteria are considered, namely, the frequency changes, the mode shape changes, and a combi-
nation of the two. A laboratory tested cantilever beam and a frame are used to demonstrate the proposed technique. Numerical results
show that the damaged elements can be detected by genetic algorithm, even when the analytical model is not accurate.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0887-3801共2002兲16:3共222兲
CE Database keywords: Vibration; Damage; Algorithms; Sensibility analysis.

Introduction ing, and scientific modeling 共Mitchell 1996兲. As compared with

During the last two decades, vibration-based methods have been
developed and applied to detect structural damage in the civil,
mechanical, and aerospace engineering communities 共Cawley and
Adams 1979; Stubbs and Osegueda 1990; Farrar and Jauregui
1996兲. These methods are based on the fact that the vibration
characteristics of structures 共namely, frequencies, mode shapes,
and modal damping兲 are functions of the structural physical pa-
rameters, such as mass, stiffness, and damping. Structural damage
usually causes a decrease in structural stiffness, which produces
changes in the vibration characteristics of the structure. Identify-
ing the structural damage with the measured vibration data is an
inverse approach in mathematics. The usual damage detection
methods minimize an objective function, which is defined in
terms of the discrepancies between the vibration data identified by
modal testing and those computed from the analytical model
共Hajela and Soeiro 1990; Hassiotis and Jeong 1995; Morassi and
Rovere 1997兲. However, these conventional optimization methods
are gradient based and usually lead to a local minimum only. A
global optimization technique is needed to derive a more accurate
and reliable solution.
In the last two decades, since first introduced by Holland
共1975兲, genetic algorithms 共GA兲 have been widely applied to
various optimization problems 共Goldberg 1989兲, machine learn-
1
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Resource Engineering, Univ.
of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy., Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
E-mail: hao@civil.uwa.edu.au
2
Graduate Student, School of Civil and Structural Engineering, Nan-
yang Technological Univ., Nanyang Ave., Singapore 639798. E-mail:
myxia@ntu.edu.sg
Note. Discussion open until December 1, 2002. Separate discussions
must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing
Editor. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and pos-
sible publication on September 7, 2000; approved on March 28, 2001.
This paper is part of the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering,
Vol. 16, No. 3, July 1, 2002. ©ASCE, ISSN 0887-3801/2002/3-
222–229/$8.00⫹$.50 per page.
the traditional optimization and search algorithms, GA search
from a population of points in the region of the whole solution
space, rather than a single point, and can obtain the global opti-
mum. Moreover, GA have the advantage of easy implementation,
because only an objective function is required and derivatives or
other auxiliary information are not necessary. These properties
make GA successful and powerful in the field of structural opti-
mization 共Jenkins 1991; Rajeev and Krishnamoorthy 1992兲. Re-
cently, a few researchers applied GA in model updating and dam-
age detection 共Larson and Zimmerman 1993; Mares and Surace
1996; Chow and Ghaboussi 1998; Friswell et al. 1998兲. In those
studies a string with binary bits was encoded to represent the
damage parameter, which was related with the elemental stiffness
change. In practice, however, the total element number is usually
very large for a realistic civil structure 共normally hundreds to
thousands兲; therefore, the length of each string 共chromosome兲 as
well as the population of chromosomes must be very huge in
order to obtain a relatively accurate model. Thus, the process
demands enormous computational effort. On the other hand, in
GA with real number encoding, one real number can represent an
elemental damage parameter; therefore, the chromosome length
will be substantially shorter, which greatly reduces the computa-
tional effort. Moreover, there will be no loss of precision due to
the binary representation as in the binary-coded GA 共Wright
1991兲.
In this paper, a genetic algorithm with real number encoding is
applied in structural damage identification analysis by minimizing
the objective function. Three different criteria are considered
based on the available vibration data. They are the frequency
changes, the mode shape changes, and a combination of the two.
The objective function directly compares the changes in vibration
data measured from the undamaged and damaged structure with
those of the analytical model before and after updating. As the
present method does not seek to tune the analytical model to
obtain an improved one in the undamaged state, it does not need
an absolutely precise analytical model. This makes the method
more versatile, as a precise analytical model is usually not avail-

222 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.

 able in practice. To demonstrate the method, a laboratory tested function optimization. There is a movement towards integer en-
cantilever beam and a frame structure are used. The results show coding for combinatorial optimization problems in recent years
that the damaged elements can be detected. and real number encoding for continuous optimization problems
described in this paper. In the stage of reproduction, the normally
used chromosome selection method—namely, the roulette wheel
Overview of Real-Coded Genetic Algorithms selection—can be replaced by stochastic universal sampling.
There are also several fitness scaling methods, such as linear scal-
GA are based on principles of evolutionary theory such as natural
ing, sigma truncation, power law scaling, and ranking scaling. A
selection and evolution. Mares and Surace 共1996兲 and Friswell
detailed description of these types of GA is out of the scope of
et al. 共1998兲 briefly introduced binary-coded GA in their respec-
this paper. More information can be found in Goldberg 共1989兲.
tive papers on applying GA in structural damage identification. In
this paper, since real number encoding is used, only a real-coded
GA is briefly introduced.
Objective Functions
In GA the term chromosome typically refers to a candidate
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

solution to a defined problem, and fitness is the objective function

Structural damage, especially local damage, is typically related to
value of the candidate solution. The component of a chromosome
changes in the structural physical parameters. In damage detec-
is named the gene. Most GA start with an initial randomly gen-
tion, damage is usually represented by an elemental stiffness re-
erated population of n chromosomes, namely, x 1 ,x 2 ,...,x n . The
duction factor 共SRF兲 in order to preserve the structural connectiv-
size of the population is generally related to the problem under
ity and reduce the unknown variables 共Hassiotis and Jeong 1995兲.
consideration. The length of each chromosome is the dimension
SRF is defined as the ratio of the elemental stiffness reduction to
of the solution space—for example, x i ⫽ 关 x i1 ,x i2 ,...,x im 兴 , where
the initial stiffness. It ranges from ⫺1 to 0, where 0 signifies no
x i1 is the first gene of the chromosome, etc.. Then the calculation
damage in the element and ⫺1 means the element loses its stiff-
of the fitness f (x) of each chromosome x in the population, which
ness completely. The objective of damage detection is to derive
is called evaluation, is performed. The Darwinian principles of
the SRFs in which nonzero terms locate the damage and their
reproduction, survival of the fittest, crossover, and mutation are
magnitudes represent the damage severity.
used to create a new offspring population 共generation兲.
The common optimization approach in damage detection or
Reproduction is a process in which individual chromosomes
model updating is to update the analytical model so that the dif-
are copied into the population according to their fitness. This
ference between the analytical vibration data after updating and
means that chromosomes with a higher fitness have a higher prob-
the measured vibration data minimizes. Some problems exist in
ability to survive in the next generation. But this may result in
this procedure when the analytical model is not accurate, e.g.,
some undesirable properties. For example, in the first few genera-
inaccurate physical parameters, nonideal boundary conditions,
tions, it is possible for a few highly fit individuals to dominate the
etc. Even with a fine-tuned analytical model according to the
selection process, and this can lead to premature convergence. In
vibration data measured in the intact state 共if such are available兲,
the later generations, the population average fitness may be close
the inevitable measurement noise and other factors also might
to the population maximum fitness; therefore, all individuals have
make the updated model not agree well with the measurements or
nearly the same probability to survive, and this leads to a random
even loose physical meaning. This paper proposes another ap-
search behavior. In both cases, scaling of the fitness function—
proach that compares the measured vibration data before and after
usually linear scaling—must be utilized.
damage directly and updates the finite-element 共FE兲 model so that
Crossover is to select parent chromosomes randomly and cross
the changes of its vibration data are equal to the changes in the
over their genes at a randomly chosen point to form two off-
measured vibration data due to structural damage as closely as
spring. For example, suppose that two parents 共with m genes兲 are
possible. Therefore, the objective function here is to minimize
x i ⫽ 关 x i1 ,x i2 ,...,x im 兴 and x j ⫽ 关 x j1 ,x j2 ,...,x jm 兴 . If they are
crossed after the kth position 共this is named one point crossover兲, J⫽ 储 W 兵 ⌬V A 共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺⌬V E 其 储 2
the resulting offsprings are
⫽ 兵 ⌬V A 共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺⌬V E 其 T W2 兵 ⌬V A 共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺⌬V E 其 (1)
x i⬘ ⫽ 关 x i1 ,x i2 ,...,x ik ,x j 共 k⫹1 兲 ,...,x jm 兴
where 储 • 储 ⫽Frobenius norm; ⌬V⫽changes in the vibration data;
x ⬘j ⫽ 关 x j1 ,x j2 ,...,x jk ,x i 共 k⫹1 兲 ,...,x im 兴 兵 ␣ 其 ⫽SRF vector; the superscripts A and E represent, respec-
tively, the analytical and experimental data; and W is a diagonal
Normally the crossover is implemented with a probability p c
positive definite matrix of the weight for each term. According to
共crossover probability兲. If no crossover takes place, the two off-
the vibration data available in testing, Eq. 共1兲 can be classified
springs are exact copies of their respective parents.
into three cases as follows.
The final operation is that of mutation, which simply replaces
a gene in a chromosome with one chosen randomly from the
solution space. Mutation is needed because the operations of re- Frequency (Eigenvalue) Changes
production and crossover occasionally may lose some potentially
If only frequencies are measured in experiment, the objective
useful information, and the mutation operator helps protect
function is equivalent to a weighted sum of squares of the differ-
against this. The frequency of mutation is usually very small; that
ences in the frequencies. For convenience, eigenvalue change ra-
is, the mutation probability p m is small. Following reproduction,
tios are used instead of frequency changes. It takes the form
crossover, and mutation we can now evaluate the new generation

冉冋 册 冋 册冊
nm
and typically iterate the process for many generations. ␭ i 共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺␭ i0 A
␭ iD ⫺␭ iU E 2

The simple procedure just described is the basis for most ap- J⫽ 兺
i⫽1
2
W ␭i
␭ i0
⫺
␭ iU
(2)
plications of GA. It must be noted that many amendments could
be made for different problems in several respects. As for code where ␭ i ⫽ith eigenvalue; superscript 0 represents the initial
form, Gray code is one variation of binary encoding especially for value; nm⫽number of measured modes; and superscripts U and

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002 / 223

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.

 D represent the undamaged and damaged states, respectively. The
weights are usually taken as unity, although they can be different
if required. Because the natural frequencies can be easily and
accurately measured even in a single point, this criterion is prac-
tical in real-time healthy monitoring of structures when periodic
measurements are undertaken. The primary disadvantages of
using only the frequency changes are that the damages in sym-
metric locations can not be differentiated for a symmetric struc-
ture, and frequencies are not sensitive to structural damage, espe-
cially to local fault 共Salawu 1997兲. In such cases mode shapes
must be incorporated.
Mode Shape Changes
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
If mode shapes are measured in np points, the objective function
is equivalent to a weighted sum of squares of the differences in all
nm mode shapes. It takes the form
nm np
J⫽ 兺
i⫽1
2
W ␾i 兺 共关 ␾ i j共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺␾ 0i j 兴 A ⫺ 关 ␾ Di j ⫺␾ Ui j 兴 E 兲 2
j⫽1
where 兵 ␾ i j 其 ⫽ jth component of the ith mass-normalized mode
shape. Only those degrees of freedom that are measured are
picked out of the analytical mode shapes. To apply Eq. 共3兲 effi-
ciently, the mode shapes should be normalized. Moreover, the
modal scale factor 共Friswell and Mottershead 1995兲 should be
used to ensure that no modes are 180° out of phase. Similarly, the
weights can be the same or different for each mode. In Eq. 共3兲,
mode shape changes are used directly instead of the change ra-
tios; this is because the small terms of the mode shapes might
cause ill conditions of the mode shape change ratios.
The vibration mode shape is sensitive to structural damage,
but in practice the measured mode shapes usually have relatively
larger errors than measured frequencies. This might lead to unsat-
isfactory damage detection results obtained by considering only
the mode shape changes. To overcome this, one alternative is to
combine the frequency changes with mode shape changes in the
analysis.
Frequency Changes Combined with Mode Shape
Changes
The objective function combining frequency changes and mode
shape changes is the summation of Eqs. 共2兲 and 共3兲; i.e.,
冉冋 册 冋
nm
␭ i 共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺␭ i0 A
␭ iD ⫺␭ iU
J⫽ 兺
i⫽1
2
W ␭i
␭ i0
⫺
␭ iU
nm np
⫹ 兺
i⫽1
2
W ␾i 兺 共关 ␾ i j共 兵 ␣ 其 兲 ⫺␾ 0i j 兴 A ⫺ 关 ␾ Di j ⫺␾ Ui j 兴 E 兲 2
j⫽1
The relative weights of frequencies and mode shapes should be
chosen carefully, which will affect the damage identification re-
sults significantly. Normally the weights are selected according to
the variance of the measurements. Since the measured mode
shapes are less accurate than the natural frequencies, the weights
of the mode shapes are usually smaller than those of the frequen-
cies.
It is noted that the aim here is to estimate the SRF for each
element, 兵␣其, so that the objective function minimizes. In GA we
always seek to increase the fitness, so we must convert the mini-
mization problem into a maximization problem. This can be eas-
ily implemented by defining the fitness function as a big number
subtracted by the initial objective function; i.e.,
224 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002
f 共 x 兲 ⫽C⫺J (5)
where C can be prescribed initially.
To apply the real-coded GA to detect structural damage, a
laboratory tested cantilever beam and frame are used. Several
parameters must be selected beforehand. In real-coded GA, the
mutation rate should be considerably higher than that of a binary-
coded GA 共Wright 1991兲. Therefore, the crossover probability,
p c , is set to 0.85 and the mutation probability, p m , is set to 0.10.
The gene of each chromosome is the SRF of each element, with
the total number depending on the analytical model—here, 20 for
the beam and 30 for the frame. Each chromosome of the popula-
tion represents the candidate SRFs of all elements. The population
size is set to 40 for the cantilever beam and 50 for the frame. For
the beam, the initial population has 40 chromosomes, each of
them consisting of 20 randomly generated real numbers in the
range of ⫺1 – 0. Evaluating the initial population, chromosomes
are reproduced according to their linear scaling fitness with the
roulette wheel selection method. Pairs of chromosomes are ran-
(3) domly chosen as a mating pool, and their genes are exchanged in
terms of uniform crossover with the probability of 0.85. Then
genes of the chromosomes are randomly replaced by randomly
generated real numbers in the range of ⫺1 – 0, with the probabil-
ity of 0.10. The process is iterated for 500 generations. The chro-
mosome corresponding to the maximum fitness of the last popu-
lation is the solution of the problem, i.e., the SRFs of all elements.
The same procedure is performed for the frame structure.
Example 1: Cantilever Beam
The experimental aluminum cantilever beam used here was ini-
tially reported by Yang et al. 共1985兲. The first six natural frequen-
cies before and after damage were applied by Hassiotis and Jeong
共1995兲 to identify the damage with the Lagrange multiplier
method. Here we use the same measurements to detect the dam-
age with GA and compare the results with those of the reference.
The cantilever beam is 495.3 mm long, 25.4 mm wide, and
6.35-mm thick, as shown in Fig. 1共a兲. The Young’s modulus is
7.1⫻1010 N/m2 and the mass density is 2.21⫻103 kg/m3 . The
beam was damaged by a saw cut, as shown in Fig. 1共b兲. The
measured first six natural frequencies before and after damage are
listed in Table 1. The beam in its intact state is modeled by 20
equant Euler-Bernoulli beam elements, and the natural frequen-
册冊
cies are estimated by eigenvalue analysis, as shown in Table 2.
E 2
Therefore, nm⫽6 and ne⫽20 in this case. It can be seen that the
analytical FE model is too coarse to represent the true structure in
the undamaged state. In this study, we do not attempt to refine the
analytical model so that the frequencies reproduce the measured
(4) ones, but, as mentioned previously, directly update the model so
that its frequency changes match the changes in the measure-
ments.
With the presented GA, Eq. 共2兲 is minimized, in which all
weights of the modes are taken as unity. After updating, the fre-
quency changes are close to the frequency changes in the mea-
surements, as shown in Table 2. The SRFs are obtained and illus-
trated in Fig. 2. The results of Hassiotis and Jeong 共1995兲 are also
shown for comparison. It is noted that the actual cut is at element
9. From the figure, it can be seen that the actual damage is de-
tected successfully by the two methods. Both methods incorrectly
detect element 12 as damaged; this is because of the noise in the
measurements of frequencies and the nonlinearity caused by the
severe damage of element 9 共actually the section was weakened
by 93.75%, which results in a significant SRF of the element兲.
J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.
 Fig. 2. Identified stiffness reduction factor 共SRF兲 of cantilever beam
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Fig. 3. History of convergence

Fig. 1. Configuration of cantilever beam: 共a兲 undamaged structure;
共b兲 damaged structure

Table 1. Experimental Frequencies of Cantilever Beam 共Hz兲

Mode Undamaged state Damaged state Change ratio 共%兲
1 19.53 19.00 ⫺2.71
2 122.05 115.85 ⫺5.08
3 339.26 332.36 ⫺2.03
4 661.73 646.91 ⫺2.24
5 1,085.22 1,037.46 ⫺4.40
6 1,594.59 1,591.36 ⫺0.20

Table 2. Analytical Frequencies of Cantilever Beam 共Hz兲

Mode Initial state Updated state change ratio 共%兲
1 23.71 23.09 ⫺2.60
2 148.59 140.90 ⫺5.17
3 416.05 407.75 ⫺2.00
4 815.33 795.14 ⫺2.48
5 1,347.95 1,292.30 ⫺4.13 Fig. 4. Configuration of frame specimen 共d⫽20 mm: Cut 1, 2; 16
6 2,014.01 1,998.43 ⫺0.77 mm: Cut 3, 4兲

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002 / 225

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.

 and the average value of the objective function of the population
with respect to the generation history. It is found that the mini-
mum and the average value are reduced with the generation num-
ber, but the convergence speed is rather slow, which is the main
disadvantage of GA.

Example 2: Portal Frame

Description of Experiment and Results

Another example is a one-span steel portal frame, as shown in

Fig. 4. The cross section of the beam is 40.50⫻6.0 mm2 , and that
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

of the columns is 50.50⫻6.0 mm2 . The Young’s modulus is

Fig. 5. Finite-element model of frame
However, it can be seen that the previous algorithm also gave a
false damage detection of element 2. More exploration reveals
that this may be caused by model refinement. In the reference, the
analytical model in the undamaged state was tuned so that the
frequencies matched the measured ones. This makes the bending
stiffness of element 2 increase by nearly 30% in the tuned ana-
lytical model, which obviously overestimates the stiffness of ele-
ment 2 and has little physical meaning. Therefore, in the damage
detection, the SRF of element 2 was enlarged 共to about ⫺60%兲.
The present results give a stiffness reduction of about 10%, indi-
cating a substantial reduction of the error. This observation dem-
onstrates that the proposed method in this paper can reduce the
modeling error effects on the damage identification. Also, it does
not require an accurate analytical model. This is very practical in
damage identification analysis, as obtaining an accurate analytical
model is usually not possible in practice.
Fig. 3 shows the objective function of the population fittest
2.0⫻1011 N/m2 and the mass density is 7.67⫻103 kg/m3 . To test
the identifiability of damages in spatial locations and severity,
four damaged configurations were introduced by increased saw
cuts at the four different locations. The four cuts are illustrated in
Fig. 4. The intact configuration F0 and a sequence of four dam-
aged configurations F1, F2, F3, and F4 were tested, respectively,
with saw cut depths d⫽10, 20, 30, and 40% of the section width.
In each test, the specimen was excited with an impact hammer
and the response was detected by an accelerometer. The acceler-
ometer was mounted on the left column at 100 mm below cut 2
with a magnetic mounting base. A multichannel spectrum ana-
lyzer recorded and processed the input and output signals, from
which the frequency response function 共FRF兲 was derived. The
sampling frequency was 600 Hz with resolution of 0.1465 Hz.
Moving the hammer at all 29 nodes, as shown in Fig. 5, 29 FRFs
were obtained, from which the in-plane vibration frequencies and
corresponding mode shapes were identified with the commercial
software ICATS 共MODENT 1998兲. Table 3 gives the first 12 reso-
nant frequencies of the undamaged structure F0 and the damaged
structure of the four configurations. It shows that the average
frequency changes of the four damaged states from the undam-
aged state are 0.2, 0.5, 1.3, and 2.7%, respectively. Fig. 5 shows
the FE model with 30 Euler-Bernoulli beam elements 共nm⫽12
and ne⫽30兲. The frequencies are estimated and compared with
the measured ones in Table 3. The data in the table also indicate
that the analytical FE model can not exactly represent the true
structure in the undamaged state. Here, F4 is applied first to illus-
trate the presented algorithm.

Table 3. Analytical and Experimental Frequencies of Frame 共Hz兲

Experimental values
Intact State Damaged States
Mode Analytical values F0 F1 F2 F3 F4
1 4.69 4.49 4.48 4.46 4.41 4.31
2 18.22 17.41 17.38 17.31 17.16 16.90
3 28.93 27.99 27.92 27.78 27.46 26.68
4 31.48 30.89 30.89 30.86 30.28 29.76
5 64.53 61.84 61.79 61.69 61.43 60.80
6 76.70 74.41 74.12 73.72 72.91 71.14
7 90.12 87.79 87.68 87.30 86.75 85.91
8 137.50 132.99 132.80 132.41 131.61 129.95
9 160.09 155.42 155.24 154.98 154.08 152.57
10 169.87 165.67 165.47 165.10 164.30 162.92
11 239.54 228.70 229.02 227.93 227.20 225.30
12 262.86 255.30 254.88 254.10 252.15 248.51

226 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.

 Fig. 6. Identified stiffness reduction factor 共SRF兲 with frequency Fig. 7. Identified stiffness reduction factor 共SRF兲 with mode shape
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

changes changes

Damage Identification with Frequency Changes
First the measured 12 modal frequencies in the intact state and
damaged state F4 are used to detect the artificial damages. With
the proposed GA, Eq. 共2兲 is minimized in which all weights of the
modes are taken as unity. The population size is 50 and the gene
number of each chromosome is 30. Fig. 6 shows the SRF results.
It is noted that the actual damages are located in elements 1, 4, 11,
and 15.
From the figure, it can be seen that elements 16– 30 have
similar identified SRF values, as do elements 1 – 15. This is be-
cause the structure is symmetric and symmetric damages cannot
be differentiated with frequency data. Looking at the left half of
the structure, it can be found that damages in elements 1 and 4 are
detected correctly, the SRF of element 15 is not large enough, and
element 11 is not detected at all. Moreover, there is a false dam-
age detection for element 6, although its SRF is not large. These
observations imply that frequency data alone are not sufficient for
successful damage detection of the symmetric portal frame, al-
though they work satisfactorily in detecting the damage in the
cantilever beam.
Damage Identification with Mode Shape Changes
With the 12 measured mode shapes in the intact and damaged
states, Eq. 共3兲 is minimized (np⫽29) with weights of unity. The
results of SRF are shown in Fig. 7. The figure shows that nearly
all the elements are detected as having damages except element 5,
indicating failure of the method. This may be caused by the large
errors of the measured mode shapes, as it is usually very difficult
to measure a vibration mode shape with the required accuracy.

Fig. 8. Identified stiffness reduction factor 共SRF兲 with combined frequency changes and mode shape changes: 共a兲 Weight⫽10; 共b兲 Weight
⫽1.0; 共c兲 Weight⫽0.1; 共d兲 Weight⫽0.001

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002 / 227

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.

 Damage Identification with Both Frequency Changes
and Mode Shape Changes
With the 12 measured frequencies and mode shapes before and
after damage, Eq. 共4兲 is minimized. Considering the relative con-
tribution of frequencies and mode shapes to the objective func-
tion, W ␭i are taken as unity and W ␾i (i⫽1, 2,•••,12) are taken as
10, 1.0, 0.1, and 0.001, respectively.
When W ␾i are 10, which implies the weight of the mode shape
changes are 10 times those of the frequency changes, the results
are very similar to those with mode shape changes only, as shown
in Fig. 7. This can be seen clearly in Fig. 8共a兲, in which nearly all
the elements are falsely detected with damage. When W ␾i de-
crease to 1.0, 0.1, and 0.001, respectively, the above procedure is
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
similarly applied and the corresponding results are illustrated in
Figs. 8共b–d兲. For weights of 1.0, the true damaged locations are
detected with large SRFs, but some undamaged elements are still
wrongly identified as damaged. The results are, however, im-
proved as compared with those in Fig. 8共a兲. When weights are
0.1, all four damaged elements are correctly detected and no un-
damaged elements are falsely identified. When all W ␾i decrease
to 0.001, the influence of mode shapes is negligible, and the re-
sults tend to be the same as those obtained with frequency
changes only, as shown in Fig. 6.
The above observations demonstrate that the relative weight of
mode shape to frequency affects the damage identification results
significantly. With a weight of 0.1, all the damages in the sym-
metric portal frame are detected satisfactorily. It should be noted
that the weight of 0.1 is not necessarily the optimal weight for all
structures. This depends on the accuracy of the measurements. In
general, the more accurately the mode shape data are measured,
the larger the weight of mode shape that should be used. It is
commonly believed that the relative measurement error of fre-
quency is about 1% and the mode shape is about 10%. Therefore,
0.1 is a proper weight in the present example.
Sensitivity Analysis
To investigate the sensitivity of the technique to the severity of
damage, the proposed algorithm is applied to the other three dam-
aged cases, F1, F2, and F3. With the presented GA, it is found
that all the damages corresponding to F3 can be accurately de-
tected, and damages in F2 can be detected but some undamaged
elements are also misidentified as damaged in this case. Damages
in F1 cannot be correctly detected. These falsities are due to the
noise of the measurements.
It is commonly believed that the relative measurement error of
frequency is about 1%. When the frequency changes due to dam-
ages are less than the error level in measurement, the true damage
information is submerged in the noise; thus, the actual damaged
members may not be identified accurately and/or the healthy
members may be wrongly detected as damaged. On the other
side, when the frequency changes due to damages are larger than
the experimental noise, i.e., about 1%, the damage can be de-
tected with the proper method. The average frequency changes of
the four damaged states from the undamaged one are 0.2, 0.5, 1.3,
and 2.7%, respectively. Therefore, the damages in F3 and F4 are
successfully detected but not in F1 and F2.
It should be noted that the structures used here are rather flex-
ible 共slenderness ratios of the beam and frame are 270 and 570,
respectively兲 so that more modes can be clearly identified from
experiments. The general applicability of the method is, however,
not limited to such flexible structures. In fact, it has also been
applied to detect damages in a two-story 1:12 scaled reinforced
228 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002
J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.
concrete 共RC兲 building model. The prototype of the model is a
realistic RC frame structure. The dimension of each column is
20⫻30⫻300 mm and each beam is 20⫻40⫻330 mm. The slen-
derness ratio of the model is about 35, much smaller than that of
the beam and the portal frame. The model was tested to failure on
a shaking table. The present GA method also successfully de-
tected the damage in this model. Without losing generality and for
concise consideration, the details of this model’s test results and
damage identification analysis are not given here.
Conclusions
A method directly comparing the measured frequencies and mode
shapes before and after damage is proposed to detect structural
damage in this paper. The technique does not seek to tune the
analytical FE model to obtain an improved one in the undamaged
and damaged state, but rather to update the finite-element model
so that its model data changes equal the measured modal data
changes as closely as possible. Therefore, an accurate analytical
model is not needed in the analysis. A genetic algorithm with real
number encoding is applied to minimize the objective function, in
which three criteria are considered; the frequency changes, the
mode shape changes, and a combination of the two.
A laboratory tested cantilever beam and a frame structure have
been used to verify the proposed technique. This has demon-
strated that the present method with a real-coded GA gives better
damage detection results for the beam than the conventional op-
timization method. With proper weights to frequency and mode
shape data, it also accurately detects damages in the symmetric
portal frame by using both the frequency changes and the mode
shape changes.
References
Cawley, P., and Adams, R. D. 共1979兲. ‘‘The location of defects in struc-
tures from measurements of natural frequencies.’’ J. Strain Anal.,
14共2兲, 49– 47.
Chow, J. H., and Ghaboussi, J. 共1998兲. ‘‘Studies in bridge damage detec-
tion using genetic algorithm.’’ Proc., 6th East Asia-Pacific Conf. on
Structural Engineering and Construction, Taipei, Taiwan, 1621–1626.
Farrar, C. R., and Jauregui, D. V. 共1996兲. ‘‘Damage detection algorithms
applied to experimental and numerical modal data from the I-40
bridge.’’ Rep. LA-13074-MS, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los
Alamos, N.M.
Friswell, M. I., and Mottershead, J. E. 共1995兲. Finite element model up-
dating in structural dynamics, Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Friswell, M. I., Penny, J. E. T., and Garvey, S. D. 共1998兲. ‘‘A combined
genetic and eigensensitivity algorithm for the location of damage in
structures.’’ Comput. Struct., 69共5兲, 547–556.
Goldberg, D. E. 共1989兲. Genetic algorithms in search, optimization and
machine learning, Addison-Wesley Longman, Reading, Mass.
Hajela, P., and Soeiro, F. J. 共1990兲. ‘‘Structural damage detection based
on static and modal analysis.’’ AIAA J., 28共4兲, 1110–1115.
Hassiotis, S., and Jeong, G. D. 共1995兲. ‘‘Identification of stiffness reduc-
tions using natural frequencies.’’ J. Eng. Mech., 121共10兲, 1106 –1113.
Holland, J. H. 共1975兲. Adaptation in natural and artificial systems, Uni-
versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Jenkins, W. M. 共1991兲. ‘‘Towards structural optimization via the genetic
algorithm.’’ Comput. Struct., 40共5兲, 1321–1327.
Larson, C. B., and Zimmerman, D. C. 共1993兲. ‘‘Structural model refine-
ment using a genetic algorithm approach.’’ Proc., 11th Int. Modal
Analysis Conf., Society for Experimental Mechanics, Kissimmee,
Fla., 1095–1101.
 Mares, C., and Surace, C. 共1996兲. ‘‘An application of genetic algorithms
to identify damage in elastic structures.’’ J. Sound Vib., 195共2兲, 195–
215.
Mitchell, M. 共1996兲. An introduction to genetic algorithms, MIT, Cam-
bridge, Mass.
MODENT. 共1998兲. User’s guide, ICATS, Imperial College of Analysis,
Testing, and Software, London.
Morassi, A., and Rovere, N. 共1997兲. ‘‘Localizing a notch in a steel frame
from frequency measurements.’’ J. Eng. Mech., 123共5兲, 422– 432.
Rajeev, S., and Krishnamoorthy, C. S. 共1992兲. ‘‘Discrete optimization on
structures using genetic algorithms.’’ J. Struct. Eng., 118共5兲, 1233–
1250.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University of Windsor on 07/18/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Salawu, O. S. 共1997兲. ‘‘Detection of structural damage through changes
in frequency: A review.’’ Eng. Struct., 19共9兲, 718 –723.
Stubbs, N., and Osegueda, R. 共1990兲. ‘‘Global damage detection in solids:
Experimental verification.’’ Int. J. Anal. Exp. Modal Anal., 5共2兲, 81–
97.
Wright, A. H. 共1991兲. ‘‘Genetic algorithms for real parameter optimiza-
tion.’’ Foundations of genetic algorithms, G. J. E. Rawlins, ed., Mor-
gan Kaufmann, San Mateo, Calif.
Yang, J. C. S., Tsai, T., Pavlin, V., Chen, J., and Tsai, W. H. 共1985兲.
‘‘Structural damage detection by the system identification technique.’’
Shock and Vibration Bull., 55共1兲, 57– 66.

JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / JULY 2002 / 229

J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2002.16:222-229.