Vibration-based structural damage localisation using time response correlation

A Damage Indication Function (DIF) is developed in this work to localise the damage on a structure. The novelty is that this is the first work proposing a time response correlation-based damage localisation method. To identify the damage, dynamic time response is measured by several sensors placed on the structure using a user excitation. A set of damaged finite element models is developed. Each damage model has only one specified damage but at different locations. The collection of the damage models forms a complete damage grid. The same user excitation is applied to each damage model to generate an analytical response. The test response is then correlated with the model response of each damage model. The highest correlation between the test response and the model response of all damage models would indicate the damage location on the test structure. A plate-type structure is used to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of DIF experimentally.