Structural damage detection based on quadratic correlation function of strain responses

Abstract A damage detection method based on the quadratic correlation function of strain responses (QCoS) and pattern matching degree (PMD) is proposed in the present study. For this method, only QCoS is calculated in time domain by strain responses, and there is no need for modal parameter extraction and analytical model of structures. It is proved that QCoS is the function of modal parameters of structures, such as natural frequency, mode shape and damping ratio. Numerical simulations of a simply supported steel beam are analyzed for illustrating the effect of excitation position, reference point and damage level on QCoS, respectively. The results show that QCoS is sensitive to local damage in the structure and robust to measurement noise. Therefore, QCoSs are used to construct the damage feature vector. The damage detection is performed by comparing the damage feature vectors before and after the structural damage. Three simply supported aluminum beams are tested in the laboratory to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.