FEM modeling method of damage structures for structural damage detection

Many current methods on structural damage identification such as GA algorithms and neural networks technology are often implemented based on a few measured data and a large number of simulation data from structural vibration responses. Therefore, to establish an accurate and efficient dynamics model for a structure with different damage is an important precondition, so that plentiful simulation data of structural vibration response can be acquired using the dynamics model of the structure with damage. There are two problems when directly meshing small structural damage in FEM modeling, i.e., excessive gridding number and unavoidable errors from differently meshing for the same damaged structure. In order to solve these two problems, this paper presents an improved modeling method based on modifying element stiffness matrix at structural damage position using a modification coefficient. The first step of this improved modeling method is to determine modification coefficient of element stiffness matrix based on the coherence of natural frequencies for two kinds of models, and the second step is to verify the coherence of the frequency-response functions. This study also introduces algorithm and calculating results of damaged element stiffness matrix. Influence of structural damage position and constraint conditions on the modification coefficient for small structural damage are also discussed. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.