Damage Detection of Truss Structures by Reduction of Degrees of Freedom Using the Serep Method

Damage detection of bridge structures during their operating lifetime is essential. In this paper, two approaches, All Degrees of Freedom and Reduction of the Degrees of Freedom methods, are used to detect the damages in structures. The first method considers All Degrees of Freedom of the structure and the second method, Reduction of the Degrees of Freedom. Since the sensors are installed only on a few degrees of freedom, the responses are available for some of them. The Degrees of Freedom must be reduced and System Equivalent Reduction Expansion Process method is one of the most efficient ways to solve the problem. This research aimed to identify the damage of structures using the Modal Strain Energy method by reducing the structural degree of freedom. Two standard examples are used and the results compared to different damage cases to examine the efficiency of the mentioned method. The results illustrated the proper performance of the Reduction of the Degrees of Freedom method to identify the damage in truss structures. By increasing the number of modes, Reduction of the Degrees of Freedom method detects considerably more accurate the damaged elements, especially when the noise is considered. Also, based on the outcomes to identify damaged elements, it is possible to consider more modes instead of more sensors.