A hybrid multiple damages detection method for plate structures

A hybrid method is proposed to properly identify multiple damages for plate structures in this work. In the stage of damage localization, singular value decomposition (SVD) is applied to reveal singularities in modal shapes, and hence to detect the damage locations. In the stage of damage quantification, based on the detected location information ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is introduced to estimate damage severity by searching for damage evaluation database, which reveals the relationship between the natural frequencies and the damage severity. The modal shapes and the natural frequencies required in damage localization and quantification are obtained via the wavelet finite element method. The numerical simulation and experimental investigation are carried out to test the performance of the hybrid method for free aluminum plates with multiple damages. And the results indicate that the proposed method is effective to identify multiple damages of plate structures with reasonable precision.