Damage Detection in Beam-like Structures Using Deflections Obtained by Modal Flexibility Matrices

In bridge structures, damage may induce an additional deflection which may naturally contain essential information about the damage. However, inverse mapping from the damage-induced deflection to the actual damage location and severity is generally complex, particularly for statically indeterminate systems. In this paper, a new load concept, called the positive-bending-inspection-load (PBIL) is proposed to construct a simple inverse mapping from the damage-induced deflection to the actual damage location. A PBIL for an inspection region is defined as a load or a system of load which guarantees bending moment to be positive in the inspection region. From the theoretical investigations, it was proven that the damage-induced chord-wise deflection (DI-CD) has the maximum value with the abrupt change in its slope at the damage location under a PBIL. Hence, a novel damage localization method is proposed based on the DI-CD under a PBIL. Experimental verification study was also carried out on a two-span continuous steel box-girder model with a steel box-girder. It was found that the proposed method clearly identified the damage existence and damage location for small damage cases with narrow cuts at the bottom flange.