Application of Damage Location Vector Method in Structural Damage Identification

In order to locate damages in structures, Damage Location Vector method is introduced. This method treats structures as linear in the pre and post damage states by calculating a set of vectors. These vectors, designated as Damage Locating Vectors (DLVs), have the property of inducing stress fields whose magnitude is zero in the damaged elements (small in the presence of truncations and approximations). The DLVs are associated with sensor coordinates and are computed as the null space of the change in flexibility from the undamaged to the damaged state. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method, an experiment is carried out for single or multiple element damage scenarios. It is demonstrated that the method is effective when the damage extent reaches a certain level.