Nondestructive damage evaluation of a curved thin beam

A vibration-based nondestructive damage evaluation technique for a curved thin beam is introduced. The proposed method is capable of detecting, locating, and sizing structural damage simultaneously by using a few of the lower natural frequencies and their corresponding mode shapes before and after a small damage event. The proposed approach utilizes modal flexibilities reconstructed from measured modal parameters. A rigorous system of equations governing damage and curvature of modal flexibility is derived in the context of elasticity. To solve the resulting system of governing equations, an efficient pseudo-inverse technique is introduced. The direct inspection of the resulting solutions provides the location and severity of damage in a curved thin beam. This study confirms that there is a strong linear relationship between the curvature of modal flexibility and flexural damage in the selected class of structures. Several numerical case studies are provided to justify the performance of the proposed approach. The proposed method introduces a way to avoid the singularity and mode selection problems from earlier attempts.