Frequency-domain substructure isolation for local damage identification

This paper proposes a frequency-domain method of substructure identification for local health monitoring using substructure isolation method (SIM). The first key step of SIM is the numerical construction of the isolated substructure, which is a virtual and independent structure that has the same physical parameters as the real substructure. Damage identification and local monitoring can be then performed using the responses of the simple isolated substructure and any of the classical methods aimed originally at global structural analysis. This paper extends the SIM to frequency domain, which allows the computational efficiency of the method to be significantly increased in comparison to time domain. The mass-spring numerical model is used to introduce the method. Two aluminum beams with the same substructure are then used in experimental verification. In both cases the method performs efficiently and accurately.