Improved synchronization-based approach for online damage detection of civil structures

In this paper, a new online damage detection method is developed using displacement and velocity measurements of the structure. The proposed method is an improved synchronization-based approach in which any changes in system parameters can be measured by synchronizing a mathematical model with the real model of the structure in real time. Several damage scenarios for structures subjected to different seismic ground motion acceleration records are studied to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The effect of noise on the performance of the proposed algorithm is also investigated and discussed. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed technique has the capability of tracking the abrupt changes of stiffness and damping parameters with high accuracy in real time.