Damage assessment of truss structures from changes in natural frequencies using ant colony optimization

A method is presented to detect and assess structural damages from changes in natural frequencies using ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm. It is possible to formulate the inverse problem in terms of optimization and then to utilize a solution technique employing ACO to assess the damages of structures using natural frequencies. The study indicates the potentiality of the developed code to solve a wide range of inverse identification problems in a systematic way. The developed code is used to assess damages of truss like structures using first few natural frequencies. The outcomes of the results show that the developed method can detect and estimate the amount of damages with satisfactory precision. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.