Modal curvature and modal flexibility methods for honeycomb damage identification in reinforced concrete beams

Modal-based damage detection methods, have received considerable attention in civil engineering applications. Damage is identified by comparing the typical dynamic properties of the damage and undamaged structure. In the present work, methods based on modal curvature and modal flexibility differences are employed for identifying and locating honeycomb damage in Reinforced Concrete beam models. In order to verify the suitability for implementing algorithms, eigenvalue analyses are carried out on finite element models of Reinforced Concrete beam and the eigenvectors for different cases are extracted. Damage is considered as a localized reduction in structural stiffness. It is observed that these methods effectively detected the existence of damage and are able to locate the position of damage for single and multiple damage scenarios for beams. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.