Multiple Damage Detection Method for Beams Based on Multi-Scale Elements Using Hermite Cubic Spline Wavelet

The importance of damage detection in structures has been widely recognized in mechanical and civil engineering. A new method is proposed to detect multiple damages based on frequency measurement. According to linear fracture mechanics theory, the damages are modeled by rotational springs. The first problem of interest is concerned with the construction of multi-scaling wavelet finite element model using Hermite cubic spline wavelet on the interval (HCSWI) in the forward problem analysis to obtain damages detection database. The second problem is the inverse problem analysis to determine the number of damages, their locations and depths based on the minimum Root-mean-square (RMS) of the differences between the measured and the computed frequencies. The performance of the proposed method has been verified by numerical examples and experimental study of two-damage cantilever beam.