Non-baseline method for damage detection in truss structures using displacement and strain measurements

Realistic problems restrict the application of many existing structural damage detection methods. Due to the requirement of a comparison between two system states, lack of appropriate baseline data may become one of the limitations to undertake structural health monitoring strategy. This article suggests a non-baseline damage detection approach based on the mixed measurements and the transmissibility concept and demonstrates it in truss structures. The algorithm uses the measurement data from the strains of the truss elements and the displacements of the truss joints, in which the displacements are utilized to estimate the baseline strains based on the transmissibility matrix from an initial finite element model. Wavelet-based damage-sensitive features are extracted from both estimated and measured strains to detect damages of the target elements. Numerical and experimental studies are performed to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. It is concluded from the instances that the robustness of the algorithm is realized when handling the measurement noise, modeling errors and the operational condition variability. These permit the potential development of the damage detection method for real structures in site.