Original Article

Structural Health Monitoring

1–18

A hybrid learning strategy for Ó The Author(s) 2020

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structural damage detection DOI: 10.1177/1475921720966943
journals.sagepub.com/home/shm

Lorena Andrade Nunes1, Rafaelle Piazzaroli Finotti Amaral2,

Flávio de Souza Barbosa1 and Alexandre Abrahão Cury1

Abstract
Over the past decades, several methods for structural health monitoring have been developed and employed in various
practical applications. Some of these techniques aimed to use raw dynamic measurements to detect damage or struc-
tural changes. Desirably, structural health monitoring systems should rely on computational tools capable of evaluating
the information acquired from the structure continuously, in real time. However, most damage detection techniques fail
to identify novelties automatically (e.g. damage, abnormal behaviors, and among others), rendering human decisions nec-
essary. Recent studies have shown that the use of statistical parameters extracted directly from raw time domain data,
such as acceleration measurements, could provide more sensitive responses to damage with less computational effort.
In addition, machine learning techniques have never been more in trend than nowadays. In this context, this article pro-
poses an original approach based on the combination of statistical indicators—to characterize acceleration measure-
ments in the time domain—and computational intelligence techniques to detect damage. The methodology consists in
the combined use of supervised (artificial neural networks) and unsupervised (k-means clustering) learning classification
methods for the construction of a hybrid classifier. The objective is to detect not only structural states already known
but also dynamic behaviors that have not been identified yet, that is, novelties. The main purpose is to allow a real-time
structural integrity monitoring, providing responses in an automatic and continuous way while the structure is under
operation. The robustness of the proposed approach is evaluated using data obtained from numerical simulations and
experimental tests performed in laboratory and in situ. Results achieved so far attest a promising performance of the
hybrid classifier.

Keywords
Structural health monitoring, damage detection, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, feature extraction

Introduction Damage detection is part of a chain that links struc-

Structural changes can be caused by several reasons,
such as the deterioration of the construction due to
aging, lack of maintenance, environmental and opera-
tional effects, unexpected loads, structural reinforce-
ment procedures, and among many others.1–3 In some
cases, however, these changes can be related to struc-
tural damage. Structural health monitoring (SHM)
encompasses a set of techniques and equipment used to
investigate the structure’s integrity. The use of SHM
procedures has the advantage of yielding high probabil-
ities of detecting structural damage in their initial
phase. Thus, SHM tools could guarantee greater safety
and comfort to users, while enabling more effective
repair and maintenance actions, directly impacting on
the reduction of operational costs.4–6
tural safety to maintenance programs. Therefore, moni-
toring systems must rely on computational tools able to
automatically evaluate the information acquired in real
time.7 Studies related to damage detection in civil
1
Post-Graduate Program in Civil Engineering, University of Juiz de Fora,
Juiz de Fora, Brazil
2
Post-Graduate Program in Computational Modelling, University of Juiz
de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
Corresponding author:
Alexandre Abrahão Cury, Department of Applied and Computational
xo kelmer, Juiz de
Mechanics, University of Juiz de Fora, Rua José Lourenc
Fora 36015410, Brazil.
Email: alexandre.cury@ufjf.edu.br
2 Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
engineering are of great interest to researchers in this
area due to the possible social and economic conse-
quences caused by anomalies in structures. It is known
that if damage is not detected in time, the structural
system can suffer serious consequences related to its
safety.8–10
Currently, continuous monitoring systems are being
used mostly in large structures. As examples, one can
cite the Millau Viaduct in France,11 the Tsing Ma
bridge in China,12 the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in
Dubai,13 as well as the Golden Gate Bridge in the
United States, the Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge in Japan,
the Grande Belt Bridge in Denmark, and among others
mentioned in the work of Xu and Xia.14 Structural nat-
ural aging and degradation, along with the lack of
proper maintenance strategies, are major reasons for
the installation of monitoring programs.
Many studies have been carried out over the last
decades aiming to develop robust and reliable methods
focusing on the diagnosis of structural failure. Most
damage detection methods are based on determining
modal parameters through a modal identification pro-
cedure.15,16 However, the identification of modal prop-
erties is a sort of filtering process, which can lead to a
loss of information (when compared to the use of raw
dynamic measurements), hiding small structural
changes that could be related to damage.17 Another
major drawback is that methods based on modal para-
meters consider that the structure remains in the linear
elastic domain after the occurrence of damage, which is
not always the case.
Thus, strategies that consider both acceleration mea-
surements using statistical analysis and computational
intelligence to assess the structure’s dynamic behavior
have been taken as a promising field of research in
recent years.18,19 The direct use of acceleration mea-
surements may ease the problem of damage detection
as the procedure becomes more straightforward since
the need for a modal identification process is ruled out.
Moreover, there is no need to know the excitation
source to assess the structure’s behavior since it is pos-
sible to deal with the output measurements directly.
Many damage detection methods are based exclu-
sively on supervised learning techniques, such as artifi-
cial neural networks (ANNs), for example. Mehrjoo
et al.20 proposed an ANN-based technique applied to a
numerical truss bridge in which modal properties (i.e.
natural frequencies and mode shapes) and acceleration
responses were used as damage sensitive features.
Although the authors recommended such an approach
for online and real-time damage detection applications,
its testing and validation on real structures were not
presented. Lee and Kim21 also verified a similar
approach both analytically and experimentally. The
ANN’s performance with strain signals was found to
be more effective compared to using acceleration
responses. Moreover, the misclassification rates
increased as the damage severity decreased. Even
though their approach appeared to be promising, the
number of false alarms prevented the method from
being generalized for all practical damage detection
applications. In another experimental study, Hakim
et al.22 used the I-beam structures to predict the severity
and location of several damage scenarios. Accelerations
along the beam were measured under a white noise
excitation. Based on their results, the proposed metho-
dology could be generalized for other applications after
verification on large-scale structures. In their work,
Cury and Crémona23 performed a comparative study
to evaluate feedforward ANNs, support vector
machines (SVMs), and Bayesian decision trees (BDTs).
The authors used concepts of symbolic data analysis
(SDA) to condense acceleration data of a steel railway
bridge in France. The bridge was monitored to assess
the efficiency of a structural strengthening procedure.
The authors concluded that the need of large training
data sets to train the supervised learning methods was a
relevant limitation. Meruane and Mahu24 attempted to
apply ANN to detect, locate, and quantify structural
damage. Two experimental cases were used to validate
their approach: an 8-degree-of-freedom (8-DOF) mass–
spring system and a beam with multiple damage scenar-
ios. Although the results obtained were reasonable,
there was no verification on large-scale structures.
In summary, even though some ANN-based
approaches have proven their efficiency in particular
cases, all of them require the analyst/engineer/stake-
holder to have prior knowledge about the structure’s
dynamic behaviors—or even its damage history—to
train the classifier. Hence, this aspect represents a
major shortcoming in practical applications since it is
not always possible to recognize different structural
conditions beforehand.
Conversely, methods based exclusively on unsuper-
vised classification do not need any prior data labeling.
However, depending on the quality of the input data
(too noisy, hazy, missing, badly sampled, etc.), this
advantage could turn into a major disadvantage, thus
leading to inaccurate results. Silva et al.25 proposed
two fuzzy clustering approaches applied to data from a
benchmark structure in Los Alamos National
Laboratory, USA. The results demonstrated that both
fuzzy clustering algorithms were effective. Nevertheless,
the damage severity was not accurately assessed, and
both approaches generated a significant number of
false-negative damage indications. Yu and Zhu26
reported a clustering technique applied to acceleration
measurements from a three-story structure tested in
laboratory. Their approach was successful for non-
linear damage detection. Yet, they suggested further
Nunes et al. 3

verifications with additional experimental studies, espe- Table 1. Statistical indicators extracted from a signal xi.
cially on large-scale structures. Studies conducted by
Alves et al.1,8 used a methodology based on k-means Peak Mean
xpeak = maxjxi j P
n
cluster analysis coupled with SDA. Several applications x = 1n xi
i=1
considering numerical simulations and experimental Mean square Root s
mean square
data were explored. Fair results were achieved when ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
P
n
Pn
modal parameters were used as damage sensitive fea- xq = 1n ðxi Þ2 1
rms = n ðxi Þ 2
i=1
i=1
tures. However, the use of raw dynamic measurements
Variance Standard deviation ffi
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
(e.g. accelerations) led to a significant number of false- P
n
s2 = 1n ðxi  xÞ2 Pn
negative alarms. Santos et al.27 implemented a similar s = 1n ðxi  xÞ2
i=1
methodology. They applied a clustering technique to a i=1

motorway bridge and observed that such an approach Skewness Kurtosis

P
n P
n
could be utilized for damage detection applications. 1
n ðxi xÞ3 1
n ðxi xÞ4

In this context, this article presents a new hybrid s = i = 1 s3 ks = i = 1 s4

learning–based approach that combines the best fea-
tures and mitigates the shortcomings of both super-
vised (ANN) and unsupervised (k-means) classification
methods for structural damage detection. More specifi-
cally, such a methodology uses the learning power from
neural networks to create a robust classifier using lim-
ited information and employs the k-means clustering to
allow identifying unknown structural behaviors. The
proposed hybrid method uses statistical indicators
extracted directly from raw acceleration measurements
as inputs to the ANN. Moreover, to circumvent the
need of knowing several structural states a priori to cre-
ate a robust classifier (which is one of the main draw-
backs of supervised learning techniques), a simple yet
efficient strategy is created. Moreover, it is known how
input data impacts on the results of clustering tech-
niques. Thus, instead of using raw dynamic measure-
ments as inputs to the k-means technique, one
proposes to utilize the ANN’s outputs, which greatly
diminishes the uncertainties inherent to raw vibration
data. Finally, coupling the k-means method with an
approach to classify new data, it is possible to identify
whether a structural behavior is already known or not.
In summary, the hybrid learning approach can deal
with real-time structural integrity monitoring where no
previous knowledge about the structure’s condition is
necessary. Thus, as soon as new structural behaviors
are identified (unsupervised learning), new baseline
databases are created and trained (supervised learning)
to carry on the dynamic monitoring program.
This article is organized as follows: section
‘‘Statistical indicators extracted from dynamic
responses’’ presents a brief discussion about how rele-
vant statistical indicators are extracted from raw struc-
tural acceleration measurements. Section
‘‘Classification methods’’ summarizes the two computa-
tional intelligence methods used along with the strategy
to classify new data. Section ‘‘Methodology’’ details the
methodology applied herein, discussing how a hybrid
classifier was developed. Section ‘‘Applications’’ pre-
sents the results obtained from numerical simulations
Crest factor K-factor
xpeak
Cf = rms Kf = xpeak : rms
of a simply supported beam, and experimental tests
performed on a four-story frame tested in a laboratory
in the United States and on a viaduct, located in
France. The influence of noise inherent to acceleration
signals, as well as the influence of parameters intrinsic
to the classification methods, are also discussed.
Finally, section ‘‘Final remarks and recommendations’’
compiles some important remarks, recommendations,
and suggestions for future works.
Statistical indicators extracted from
dynamic responses
A proper choice of statistical indicators is extremely rel-
evant since it plays a major role in the performance of
methods applied to damage detection problems.
Although artificial intelligence techniques are very effi-
cient in solving such problems, the definition of input
variables capable of providing representative and suffi-
cient information of dynamic signals is of paramount
importance.
In this article, 10 higher-order statistical indicators
(Table 1) are used to characterize dynamic tests, that is,
acceleration measurements. Their choice is based on
their good performance verified in previous
works.18,28–30 According to Farrar and Worden,29 the
analysis of structural dynamic time-series responses is
able to extract information from signals in a simpler
way than using modal analysis.
Classification methods
This section presents a brief overview of both super-
vised (ANN) and unsupervised (k-means) classification
methods used in this article. The difference between
such methods is that the former uses a series of
4 Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
previously known labels (provided as input data) for
the definition of different classes, whereas in the latter,
unknown objects are grouped into different groups
according to a notion of similarity (or dissimilarity).
An advantage of unsupervised methods is the ability to
classify unseen data,31,32 whereas in supervised meth-
ods, this is not possible. These specific methods were
selected based on previous results obtained in the
works of Alves et al.,17 Finotti et al.,18 and Cury and
Crémona.23 While the first two provided extensive
benchmark studies on three supervised classification
methods—ANN, BDTs, and SVMs—the third one per-
formed similar analyses using unsupervised classifica-
tion methods—agglomerative hierarchical clustering,
k-means, and divisive clustering. These methods were
evaluated utilizing vibration data extracted from
numerical simulations and experimental structures,
ranging from small to large scales. From these studies,
the authors have concluded that both ANN and k-
means methods have provided the most reliable results
among the applications considered.
ANNs
Neural networks are adaptive systems that have already
proven to be efficient classifiers. They have been suc-
cessfully used for solving various problems that cover
high degrees of nonlinearity.33,34 Considering the non-
linear nature of real-world phenomena, such as the
classification of structural dynamic behaviors, neural
networks would be a natural choice for this task.
Generally, ANNs are trained in such a way that a given
input leads to a specific target output. In this context,
adjustments are made to the network weights based on
a comparison between the target and the ANN’s output
until the difference between them is minimized (super-
vised learning).
In this article, a multilayer perceptron (MLP) feed-
forward neural network using backpropagation learn-
ing composed of an input layer, one single hidden
layer, and an output layer is used to classify dynamic
tests. Figure 1 shows the architecture of a typical single
hidden layer MLP with D inputs, K hidden neurons,
and M outputs. Connections between neurons have
associated weights represented by wij . In this article,
the elements of the input layer are the feature vectors
(a feature vector is an nf-dimensional vector containing
numerical features that represent some object. In this
article, a feature vector contains the statistical indica-
tors (see Table 1) extracted from the acceleration mea-
surements of each sensor. A feature vector ultimately
represents a dynamic test) and the outputs are arbitrary
classification labels (i.e. representing possible damage
levels), represented in binary notation. Specific details
Figure 1. MLP network with one hidden layer (adapted from
Prı́ncipe et al.35).
about input and output data are discussed in section
‘‘Definition of the feature vectors and the ANN’s
inputs.’’
Both hidden and output layers are composed of neu-
rons that work with functions aiming to add nonlinea-
rities to the model known as transfer or activation
functions. Considering the MLP network in Figure 1,
for each dynamic test to be classified, the inputs xi are
weighted by the adjustable weights wij before being
processed by the K neurons of the respective layer l
(l = 2,3). Then, each neuron calculates the sum of
these weighted inputs and the result of this sum is sent
to the activation function ( f ) used. The results are the
outputs yj of each neuron. This procedure is summar-
ized in equation (1)
!
X
n
ðl1Þ ðl1Þ
yj = f wij xi + bðl1Þ , for j = 1, . . . , K ðlÞ ð1Þ
i=1
where b is the bias associated to the layers. More
detailed information about ANN can be found in
Prı́ncipe et al.35
k-Means clustering
The clustering procedure is a category of unsupervised
data classification that gathers clusters or groups with
similar data.36 In general, the objective is to separate a
given data set into different clusters according to a
notion of dissimilarity or similarity. Groups of data
considered ‘‘similar’’ will belong to the same cluster,
while other groups of data considered ‘‘different’’ will
belong to different clusters.37 For this to occur, an
appropriate grouping algorithm and distance metric
need to be defined.
Distance metrics are used to measure similarity
between objects represented by the feature vectors.
Objects are considered similar if the distances among
Nunes et al.
Figure 2. Operation of the k-means algorithm (a) initial
dataset and prototypes, (b) random cluster/prototypes
initialization, (c) clusters/prototypes’ update, and (d) clusters/
prototypes’ final configuration.
them are small. Otherwise, they are considered different
as they are distant.38 After extensive preliminary analy-
ses involving a series of metrics available in the litera-
ture (Euclidean, cosine, correlation, Mahalanobis,
among others), the City Block (or Manhattan) metric
was chosen
X
nf
uðA, BÞ = j Ai  Bi j
i=1
where A and B are the two feature vectors, and nf is the
number of features.
As already discussed, the clustering method used in
this article is the k-means algorithm, which aims to find
the most appropriate partition to n feature vectors into
k clusters,39 being k fixed and defined a priori. This
algorithm uses the concept of centroids, which are the
‘‘representatives’’ of each cluster.40
Figure 2 illustrates the procedure of the k-means
algorithm for dividing a data set into four groups. The
feature vectors in the set are represented by circles and
the centroids by an ‘‘x.’’ First, the number of groups k
to be formed needs to be defined. In Figure 2(a), k = 4
feature vectors are selected as starting centroids accord-
ing to some starting criteria. There are several proce-
dures for centroid initialization (plus, sample, uniform,
cluster, etc.). However, after performing preliminary
tests, the best suited for our applications was the plus
initialization. The plus initialization method basically
selects k seeds at random from the data set by
5
implementing the k-means++ algorithm for cluster cen-
ter initialization. Such an algorithm uses a heuristic to
find centroid seeds for the k-means clustering. With the
k-means++ initialization, the algorithm is guaranteed
to find a solution that is competitive to the optimal k-
means solution (more information on Mathworks41
and David and Vassilvitskii42). Thus, the distance
between each feature vector and each centroid is calcu-
lated using a similarity function (distance metric).
Then, each feature vector is assigned to the group with
the closest centroid (Figure 2(b)). After all feature vec-
tors are assigned to the clusters, the centroids of each
group are recalculated (Figure 2(c)). In Figure 2(d), the
setup for repeating steps (b) and (c) is presented. These
steps are repeated until all feature vectors are within
clusters whose centroids are as close as possible to
them.
Determination of threshold distances for clusters
To decide if a new feature vector (i.e. a dynamic test)
belongs to existing clusters or if it represents a new
behavior, let us consider the example of a partition
P1 = fC 1 , C 2 g containing two clusters: C 1 = fT1 , T2 , T4 g
and C 2 = fT3 , T5 g, where Ti represents a feature vector.
The objective of this approach is to assign a new fea-
ture vector T6 to one of these two clusters: C 1 or C 2 .
However, it is possible that T6 represents a new beha-
vior that is not described by either of these groups. To
solve this impasse, a methodology described in Cury
and Crémona43 proposes the following steps:
ð2Þ
1. Evaluate the centroids of the final partition, named
G1 and G2 .
2. Evaluate the distance (equation (2)) between the set
of feature vectors in cluster C 1 = fT1 , T2 , T4 g and its
prototype G1 , and also between the set of cluster
C 2 = fT3 , T5 g and its prototype G2 .
3. Fit a cumulative distribution probability function
(CDF) to the distances calculated in step 2 (see
Figure 3).
4. Determine a threshold distance for each cluster
(named dt1 and dt2 ) corresponding to 97.5%
(modifications in this rate might yield different
classification results. Sections ‘‘Experimental test I:
yellow frame’’ and ‘‘Experimental test II: railway
bridge’’ present a more detailed discussion about
this parameter) of the cumulative distribution func-
tion (see Figure 3).
5. Calculate the distance between the new test T6 and
the prototype G1 , denoted by u(T6 , G1 ), and also
the distance between T6 and the prototype G2 ,
denoted by u(T6 , G2 ).
6 Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)

6. Define decision criteria for assigning the new test

to one of the two known groups or to a new one as
follows

8
>
> uðT6 , G1 Þ\uðT6 , G2 Þ uðT6 , G1 Þ\dt1 ) T6 2 C 1
<
uðT6 , G1 Þ\uðT6 , G2 Þ uðT6 , G1 Þ.dt1 ) T6 2 C 3
If
>
> uðT6 , G1 Þ.uðT6 , G2 Þ uðT6 , G2 Þ\dt2 ) T6 2 C 2
:
uðT6 , G1 Þ.uðT6 , G2 Þ uðT6 , G2 Þ.dt2 ) T6 2 C 3

where C 3 represents a new group.

It is important to emphasize that this strategy is not
limited to two initial clusters. The same logic can be
applied to cases where more than two initial clusters
are considered. This would obviously involve the eva-
luation of more threshold distances and an appropriate
expansion of the decision criteria explained in step 6.

Figure 3. Example of cumulative probability function fitting and

Methodology determination of the threshold distance.
The proposed strategy is divided into two phases: the
first one consists in creating the damage detection
model, and the second one refers to the classification of The second strategy is to organize the feature vectors
new dynamic tests. However, before explaining each test-wise, as shown in equation (5)
phase, it is important to describe how the feature vec-
tors and the ANN’s input data matrices are assembled. ðT1 I1 , T1 I2 , . . . , T1 I10 , T2 I1 , T1 I2 , . . . , T2 I10 , . . . , Tn I1 , . . . , Tn I10 Þ
ð5Þ

Definition of the feature vectors and the ANN’s where Tn Iq is the qth statistical indicator of the nth
inputs dynamic test. Thus, the number of features nf is equal
to n.
In this article, two strategies are proposed to define the
For this case, the ANN input data matrix is assem-
feature vectors. The first one is based on a sensor-wise
bled as follows: the first row of the matrix represents
arrangement, as shown in equation (3)
the first test (T1 ) and the first 10 columns are the 10 sta-
  tistical indicators (Iq , q = 1, . . . , 10) extracted from sen-
S1 I1 , S1 I2 , . . . , S1 I10 , S2 I1 , S2 I2 , . . . , S2 I10 , . . . , Sp I1 , . . . , Sp I10
sor 1 (S1 ) of the first test (T1 ). The next 10 columns are
ð3Þ the 10 indicators extracted from sensor 2 (S2 ) of the first
test (T1 ) and so on, until reaching the last 10 indicators
where Sp Iq is the qth statistical indicator of the pth sen-
extracted from sensor Sp of test (T1 ) (see equation (6))
sor. Thus, the number of features nf is equal to p  q.
For this case, the ANN input data matrix is orga- 2 3
T1 I1S1 . . . T1 I2S1 . . . T1 I10S1 . . . T1 I1Sp . . . T1 I10Sp
nized as follows: the first row of the matrix represents 6 T2 I1S1 . . . T2 I2S1 . . . T2 I10S1 . . . T2 I1Sp . . . T1 I10Sp 7
6 7
sensor 1 (S1 ) and the first 10 columns are the 10 statisti- 6 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7
4 . . . . . . . . . 5
cal indicators (Iq , q = 1, . . . , 10) extracted from sensor
Tn I1S1 . . . Tn I2S1 . . . Tn I10S1 . . . Tn I1Sp . . . T1 I10Sp
S1 of the first test (T1 ). The next 10 columns are the 10
indicators extracted from the signal of this same sensor ð6Þ
(S1 ), but now from the second test (T2 ) and so on, until
reaching the last 10 indicators extracted from sensor S1
of test Tn (see equation (4)) Creating the hybrid classifier
2 3 The first phase of the methodology consists in the fol-
S1 I1T1 S1 I2T1 ... S1 I10T1 ... S1 I1Tn ... S1 I10Tn lowing steps (also depicted in Figure 4):
6 S2 I1T1 S2 I2T1 ... S2 I10T1 ... S2 I1Tn ... S2 I10Tn 7
6 7
6 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7
4 . . . . . . . . 5
1. Create the ANN and set its hyperparameters (e.g.
Sp I1T1 Sp I2T1 ... Sp I10T1 ... Sp I1Tn ... Sp I10Tn
number of neurons in the hidden layer, training
ð4Þ method, and error function).
Nunes et al.
Figure 4. Creation of the proposed damage detection model (first phase) considering two initial structural states.
2. Pass the input data matrices along with arbitrary
labels to the ANN.
3. Train, validate, and test the ANN.
4. Set the k-means clustering parameters (e.g. desired
number of clusters, distance metric, and initializa-
tion algorithm).
5. Cluster the ANN’s outputs, yielding s groups
(C 1 , C 2 , . . . , C s ), where each one represents a dif-
ferent structural behavior.
6. Calculate the threshold distances (dt1 , dt2 , . . . , dts )
related to each cluster as mentioned in section
‘‘Determination of threshold distances for clusters’’
(steps 1–4).
After step 6, the damage detection model is created
and ready to classify new dynamic tests as either known
or new structural behaviors. Moreover, steps 3 and 5
are critical to this strategy. In fact, if the ANN yields
bad classification results, this will directly influence the
k-means algorithm outputs, thus consequently affecting
the threshold distances, which are pivotal for the sec-
ond phase of the proposed approach.
Although the first three steps of Phase 1 are classi-
fied as supervised since they use ANN, they do not
necessarily require prior knowledge of several different
structural states for their application. In fact, knowing
several—or even just two—structural conditions
beforehand are a rare situation when it comes to SHM
applications. Thus, to circumvent this limitation, a sim-
ple yet efficient approach can be used to initialize the
proposed methodology. By ensuring that a set of
dynamic tests are related to a single structural
condition—which could be achieved by acquiring sev-
eral tests during a short controlled period of time—a
second data set could be artificially created so that it
7
expresses a dynamic behavior completely different
from the first one and does not influence the classifi-
cation of the proposed strategy. For instance, an
input data matrix formed by ‘‘ones’’ (or ‘‘twos,’’
‘‘tens,’’ etc.) could represent such a fictitious input
data set. Similarly, arbitrary labels are created. Then,
after a new actual behavior is identified, the fictitious
state is discarded and only the real structural condi-
tions are used. Thus, the proposed methodology can
be seamlessly applied to a continuous SHM program
where just a single structural state needs to be known
a priori.
The second phase of the methodology consists in the
following steps (also shown in Figure 5):
1. Input a new feature vector T (i.e. dynamic test) to
the ANN trained during Phase 1.
2. Evaluate the distance between the ANN’s output
(O) and the centroids (G1 , G2 , . . . , Gs ) of each clus-
ter, denoted by u(O, Gi ), with i = 1,..., s, according
to step 5 of section ‘‘Determination of threshold
distances for clusters.’’
3. Verify whether the new data represent a known
structural behavior or not according to step 6 of
section ‘‘Determination of threshold distances for
clusters,’’ yielding two outcomes:
(a) Known behavior(s): the new test is classified
according to one of the previous known
behavior(s).
(b) Unknown behavior(s) (i.e. novelty): the new
test is addressed to a novel cluster.
4. Repeat the entire procedure from Phase 1, but now
considering s + 1 initial structural conditions, that
is, clusters.
8 Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
Figure 5. Classification of new dynamic tests (second phase) considering two initial structural states.
In summary, the proposed strategy allows perform-
ing a real-time dynamic monitoring program where
new tests are continuously categorized by the hybrid
classifier into clusters representing known or unknown
behavior.
Applications
In this section, the performance of the hybrid classifier
is evaluated to detect changes in the dynamic responses
of three different structures. All algorithms and imple-
mentations were developed using toolboxes and inter-
nal functions available in MATLAB. Initially, the
proposed methodology is applied to a numerical model
of a simply supported beam. Then, data collected from
a four-story frame tested in laboratory at the University
of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, and from a rail-
way viaduct, located in France, are used to assess the
hybrid classifier’s performance.
In all applications, the ANN model implemented is
a feedforward MLP with a single hidden layer. The
learning algorithm used is the Levenberg–Marquardt
and the mean square error is used as a cost function.44
The activation functions used in the hidden and output
layers were the hyperbolic tangent sigmoid and the soft-
max functions, respectively.41 The number of neurons
used in the hidden layer of the network influences the
ANN’s output, which consequently influences the final
response of the hybrid classifier.
At this point, it is noteworthy that there are a con-
siderable number of methods in the SHM literature to
optimally select the ANN’s hyperparameters, such as
genetic algorithms, grid search, Bayesian optimization,
regression analyses, and among many others. However,
the use of such techniques implicates on the definition
of new sets of parameters related to them. To avoid this
situation, one proposes a sensitivity analysis over the
most relevant parameters to select the best configura-
tions. Similar analyses were performed in Ranjbar and
Saffar,45 Zhang and Wallace,46 Fock,47 and Cao et al.48
For the k-means algorithm, the distance metric and
initialization techniques were defined as ‘‘City Block’’
and ‘‘plus,’’ respectively, as explained in section
‘‘k-means clustering.’’
Numerical analysis
A numerical example using a finite element model
(FEM) of a simply supported beam is initially chosen
to verify the efficiency of the proposed approach. The
FEM consists of 200 Euler–Bernoulli elements, where
each element has two nodes with 2 degrees of freedom
(vertical translation and rotation) per node. The
mechanical and geometrical properties are follows: the
beam is 6 m long; Young’s modulus (E) is equal to
210 GPa; the cross-sectional area and moment of iner-
tia are 2:813103 m2 and 1:8453108 m4 , respectively;
and the mass density is 7850 kg m3 . A random force
excitation F(t) with different amplitudes and frequen-
cies was applied at 0.69 m from the right support. To
reproduce an actual instrumentation with acceler-
ometers, vibration signals are simulated as vertical
accelerations at 10 equidistant measurement points
(‘‘sensors’’) collected during 100 s with a sampling
Nunes et al.
Figure 6. Numerical test of a simply supported beam (units: m).
frequency of 100 Hz. The beam model is represented in
Figure 6.
Three structural conditions are simulated: D0—
healthy beam (undamaged); D1—damage level #1
(characterized by a reduction of 20% in Young’s mod-
ulus at the midspan), illustrated by the light gray region
in Figure 6; and D2—damage level #2 (characterized
by a reduction of 10% in Young’s modulus at the
quarter length), illustrated by the dark gray region in
Figure 6, plus the second structural configuration
(damage level #1). Moreover, the simulated signals
are contaminated with three levels of noise: no noise
(N0), 5% (N1), and 10% (N2), evaluated by means of
equation (7)
xi, noise = xi + hnoise :sxi :V ;N ð0, 1Þ
where xi, noise and xi are the vectors containing accelera-
tion measurements with and without noise measured
by sensor i, respectively, hnoise is the level of noise, sxi is
the standard deviation of xi , and V ;N (0, 1), in which
V is a vector with random values extracted from a stan-
dard normal distribution.
In this study, 10 different dynamic tests are simu-
lated for each level of damage and noise, yielding 90
tests (10 vibration tests 3 three structural conditions 3
three noise levels). For each test, 10,000 points are mea-
sured per sensor. For these measurements, 10 statistical
indicators are calculated, as presented in Table 1.
Results. For all simulations regarding this application,
the best results are obtained when data are organized as
‘‘sensors’’ (see equations (3) and (4)), where nine input
[10 3 100] matrices are formed. Each matrix represents
a structural configuration, where rows correspond to
the number of sensors used in the tests, and the 100
9
columns are the statistical indicators extracted from
each sensor for all 10 tests performed (10 indicators
3 10 tests = 100 indicators per sensor).
As already mentioned, sensitivity analyses regarding
the number of neurons in ANN’s hidden layer are per-
formed. The number of neurons tested is 25, 35, and 50.
To define this set of values, many others were tested.
The tests started with the number of neurons equal to
10 and were varied on a step of 5 until reaching 100
neurons. Of all values tested, this set presented the most
consistent results.
In the following simulations, the neural networks
used within the hybrid method are executed and
trained, considering a 10-fold cross-validation method,
thus generating 10 hybrid classifiers. The k-fold cross-
ð7Þ validation aims to ensure the ability to generalize com-
putational intelligence models when subjected to data
not yet seen.49
To simulate a real-case monitoring scenario, the ini-
tial input data considered a fictitious damage level
(matrix of ‘‘ones’’) and the undamaged case (D0). Thus,
the ANN’s input matrix has dimensions [20 3 100],
where rows from 1 to 10 represent the tests with a ficti-
tious level of damage and rows from 11 to 20 corre-
spond to undamaged tests.
Since it is a supervised learning method, ANN also
need labels (damage classes) corresponding to each
observation in the input matrix. Thus, an arbitrary tar-
get matrix [20 3 2] is generated, where the rows indi-
cate the class of the test using the following binary
coding: [1 0]—fictitious damage and [0 1]—undamaged.
As Phase 1 begins, the ANNs are trained and unseen
subsets of both training (training and validation) and
testing are inputted to the networks. Then, the k-means
method is fed with the ANN’s outputs, yielding two
clusters related to each structural state, that is, one
10
Figure 7. Confusion matrix for the hybrid classifier (50
neurons in the hidden layer; 10% of noise).
group representing the condition of fictitious damage
and the other corresponding to the undamaged state.
Thus, the threshold distances for each cluster are calcu-
lated and the hybrid classifier is created.
Afterward, Phase 2 begins with new dynamic tests
being inputted to the already trained ANN. Each round
of simulations considered a specific number of neurons
in the hidden layer per level of noise, yielding nine dif-
ferent sets of simulations (three number of neurons 3
three levels of noise). It is observed that no matter how
these two parameters change, the ANN can correctly
classify 100% of the tests relating to the damage states
that they were trained to recognize, that is, fictitious
and undamaged.
Then, the threshold distances between the ANN out-
puts (Phase 2) and the centroids of each cluster previ-
ously formed (Phase 1) are calculated. Finally, it is
verified whether the new data are related to known
structural behaviors (fictitious or damage level #1) or
not, according to step 6 of section ‘‘Determination of
threshold distances for clusters.’’Figure 7 shows the
results in terms of a confusion matrix for the 10-fold
simulations considering 50 neurons in the hidden layer
and the maximum level of noise added to the data
(10%). Only real-case damage scenarios are displayed.
Moreover, since the results obtained when data are
organized by ‘‘tests’’ were worse than the ones achieved
by ‘‘sensors,’’ they are omitted.
In general, it is observed that the level of noise does
not influence the results. The number of neurons used
in the hidden layer, however, plays an important role
in the classification of the hybrid method. Although
Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
this parameter did not affect the ANN’s initial training,
validation, and testing, it does influence the final
response of the hybrid method. When the number of
neurons used is 25 or 35, the performance of the hybrid
method is satisfactory in identifying the already known
structural state (D0), even under the presence of noise.
However, the method fails in detecting new structural
behaviors (D1 and D2) properly, yielding correct classi-
fication rates below 50% in some cases.
Moreover, the standard deviations over the 10-fold
simulations are all equal to zero. This can be explained
by the fact that even though there are changes in the
creation of clusters (since each iteration of the 10-fold
yields a different neural network, thus different out-
puts), these changes were so small that they did not
affect the final results.
In all simulations performed, 10 distance values were
used to fit the CDF (step 4 in section ‘‘Determination
of threshold distances for clusters’’). Ideally, a larger
number of distance values should be used so that a
more refined distribution is created, yielding a more
‘‘adjusted’’ threshold distance. Further discussion is
provided in section ‘‘Experimental test I: yellow frame’’
in ‘‘Results.’’
It is important to emphasize that this entire proce-
dure could be reapplied discarding the fictitious sce-
nario. In that circumstance, data from real damage
cases, such as D0, D1, and D2, could be used as base-
line training data sets to classify new damage scenarios.
Experimental test I: yellow frame
The structure studied in this section, named yellow
frame, is a four-story, two-bay by two-bay steel-frame
scale model (1/3) (Figure 8(a)). This frame is located at
the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory at
the UBC in Canada. The structure was mounted on a
concrete slab outside the structural testing laboratory
at the UBC campus to simulate typical ambient vibra-
tion conditions (Dyke et al.50 and Dyke et al.51).
The structure’s dimensions are 2.5 m (wide) 3 2.5
m (long) 3 3.6 m (tall). The members are hot-rolled,
grade 300W steel (nominal yield stress 300 MPa). The
sections are specifically designed for this scale model
test framework. The columns are B100 3 9 sections
and the floor beams are S75 3 11 sections. Figure 8(b)
shows the typical beam–column connection and the
bracing system.
In each bay, the bracing system consists of two half-
inch diameter steel rods placed parallel along the diago-
nal. To make the mass distribution reasonably realistic,
one floor slab is placed in each bay per floor: four
1000 kg slabs at each of the first, second, and third lev-
els and four 750 kg slabs on the fourth floor (see Figure
8(c)).
Nunes et al.
Figure 8. (a) Structural system, (b) support system, and (c) positioning of masses (Dyke et al.50 and Dyke et al.51).
Since the structure’s establishment, several experi-
ments were carried out, including ambient vibration
tests, impact tests, and shaker tests. Only ambient
vibration tests are used to assess the ability of the pro-
posed approach to continuous monitoring applications.
Therefore, excitations were due to wind, pedestrians,
and traffic in the vicinities of the structure. Further
details about the experiment setup and data can be
found in Dyke et al.50 and Dyke et al.51
Fifteen accelerometers (FBA and EPI sensors, 0–
50 Hz frequency range, sensitivity of 5 V/g) were placed
throughout the frame, three at each floor including the
ground level. Such transducers were placed so as they
could measure motions in all directions and torsional
modes. Anti-aliasing filter cut-off of 50 Hz was used,
and the data were sampled at 200 Hz.
The structure was subjected to different scenarios of
damage (1–5), where the braces were removed and
placed gradually as shown in Figure 9. In order of
acquisition, levels 1, 5, 4, 3, and 2 simulate gradual
damage to the support system. These levels are
described in Table 2.
Figure 10 depicts the acceleration histories measured
by the 15 sensors. Magenta vertical lines indicate the
limits between cases, that is, simulated damage. It is
worth mentioning that the wide variation in terms of
response amplitudes is mainly due to different levels of
11
ambient excitation of the tested scenarios (more or less
wind and traffic).
Results. For each one of the five damage levels, a
dynamic test consisted of 60,000 acceleration samples
measured by each one of the 15 sensors, yielding
[60,000 3 15] data matrices per test. These matrices are
divided into six parts of dimensions [10,000 3 15],
yielding six matrices per level of damage, as if each part
was a test performed separately. This division is neces-
sary to guarantee a larger number of training and test-
ing samples for the hybrid classifier. Then, the 10
statistical indicators are extracted.
For all simulations concerning this application, the
best results are obtained when data are organized by
‘‘tests’’ (see equations (5) and (6)), where five input
matrices of dimension [6 3 150] are assembled, with each
matrix representing a structural configuration. The rows
correspond to the number of tests performed by each
level of damage (six, in this case) and the columns are the
statistical indicators extracted from the signals of the 15
sensors (10 indicators 3 15 sensors = 150 indicators).
Since this is an experimental application, it has
uncertainties inherent to the data acquisition process.
Thus, in addition to sensitivity analyses regarding the
number of neurons, another sensitivity study is carried
12
Figure 9. Levels of damage imposed on the structure (Dyke et al.50 and Dyke et al.51).
Table 2. Cases of damage imposed to the structure
(Dyke et al.50 and Dyke et al.51).
Case Configuration
1 Fully braced configuration.
2 All east side braces removed.
3 Removed braces on all floors in one bay on southeast
corner.
4 Removed braces on first and fourth floors in one bay
on southeast corner.
5 Removed braces on first floor in one bay on southeast
corner.
Figure 10. History of acceleration signals.
Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
out considering the probability rate of a new test to
belong to existing clusters (step 4—section
‘‘Determination of threshold distances for clusters’’).
To this end, three different rates of the CDF are evalu-
ated: 97.5%, 90%, and 85%. The number of neurons
tested in the hidden layer is 15, 25, and 55.
Initial simulations are performed training the neural
network using a fictitious damage state (matrix of
‘‘ones’’) and damage level #1 data. The ANN’s input
matrix has dimensions [6 3 150], where rows from 1 to
3 represent the tests from the fictitious damage state,
while rows from 4 to 6 correspond to tests pertaining
Nunes et al.
Figure 11. Confusion matrix for the hybrid classifiers when
input data are organized by ‘‘tests.’’
to damage level #1. Thus, half of the tests from damage
level #1 are used in the ANN’s training. The remaining
samples are used to test the hybrid method. Moreover,
a [6 3 2] matrix containing arbitrary labels (damage
classes) corresponding to each test is provided as inputs
to the network. The matrix’s rows indicate the class of
the test using a binary coding: [1 0]—fictitious damage
and [0 1]—damage level #1.
Following the same procedure presented in the pre-
vious section, the ANNs are trained, the clusters are
formed, and the threshold distances are calculated. The
ANNs are trained using a 6-fold cross-validation due
to the small number of samples available, thus generat-
ing six hybrid classifiers.
When Phase 2 begins, unknown new tests related to
all damage levels are presented to the trained ANN.
Again, the ANN can correctly classify 100% of the tests
relating to the damage states that they were trained to
recognize, that is, fictitious and level #1.
Figure 11 depicts the results in terms of a confusion
matrix for the 6-fold simulations. For this application,
the three different rates of cumulative probability
(97.5%, 90%, and 85%) yielded the same results. Only
real-case damage scenarios are displayed. Moreover,
since the results obtained when data are organized by
‘‘sensors’’ were worse, they are omitted.
The influence of the number of neurons on the per-
formance of the hybrid method is observed again. The
best results are obtained with 25 neurons in the
13
Figure 12. Cumulative probability distribution of the
calculated distances.
network’s hidden layer. In this case, the performance
of the hybrid method is quite satisfactory not only for
the identification of the known structural behavior
(D1) but also for the detection of new unknown struc-
tural behaviors (D2, D3, and D4), except for damage
level #5 (which consists in the removal of a single brace
of the structure). Again, the standard deviations for all
6-fold validations are equal to zero.
Like stated in the previous section, this entire proce-
dure could be reapplied by discarding the fictitious sce-
nario and keeping the actual—and now identified—
ones to classify new damage cases.
When it comes to the definition of the cumulative
distribution function rate, a few important remarks
arise as follows:
 Since there is a small number of tests available in
this study (only five, which were then divided into
30 ‘‘subtests’’), the number of distances among tests
and clusters’ centroids used to fit a cumulative dis-
tribution function is also limited. Thus, it is not pos-
sible to define the threshold distance corresponding
exactly to the rate of 97.5% of the CDF (see Figure
3). The closest rate that has a matching threshold
distance is 100%, as shown in Figure 12. For this
case, even though the performance of the hybrid
method was adequate in identifying known and
some unknown behaviors, it failed to detect D5.
This can be explained by the fact that a high thresh-
old distance value tends to prohibit the identifica-
tion of new behaviors, since it broadens the criteria
14
Figure 13. Experimental setup of the bridge:52 (a) view of the bridge during the strengthening procedure, (b) strengthening system,
and (c) localization of the sensors.
limits (see step 6, section ‘‘Determination of thresh-
old distances for clusters’’).
 By reducing the CDF rate to 90%, the number of
correct classifications remains the same for known
damage states but increases for new damage levels.
 With the rate reduced to 85%, the performance of
the hybrid method in detecting known behaviors
begins to drop while correct classification percen-
tages for new structural behaviors remain the same.
Those three remarks highlight the importance of
properly defining the CDF rate for each application.
Experimental test II: railway bridge
The structure analyzed in this section is an embedded
steel bridge (Figure 13(a)) located at a high-speed track
in southeastern France, kilometer point 075 + 317,
between the cities of Sens and Soucy in the county of
Yonne. A dynamic monitoring campaign was per-
formed to analyze the influence of a strengthening pro-
cedure, as Figure 13(b) shows.
The strengthening procedure consisted in tightening
special bearings in an effort to shift the first natural fre-
quency from the excitation frequency due to the trains’
crossings.52 The data comprised measurements of eight
Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
vertical accelerometers and two horizontal acceler-
ometers (longitudinal and transversal) located under
the bridge deck acquired at a sampling rate of 4096 Hz,
respecting the Nyquist frequency.
Two measurement campaigns were carried out: the
first one on 24 June 2003, before reinforcement, when
15 dynamic tests were registered; and the second one,
which took place on 26 June 2003, after the reinforce-
ment was completed, when 13 tests were carried out.
Since the experimental tests were recorded during high-
speed trains (TGV) crossings, ambient vibrations are
not controlled (output-only accelerations). In total, 280
signals were recorded (28 tests 3 10 accelerometers per
test). For each signal, 10 statistical indicators are
calculated.
Results. For all simulations concerning this application,
the best results are obtained when data are organized
by ‘‘tests’’ (see equations (5) and (6)), where two input
matrices are assembled. For the structural state before
reinforcement, the matrix has dimensions [15 3 100].
For the structural state after reinforcement, the matrix’s
dimensions are [13 3 100]. The rows correspond to
each test, whereas the columns are related to the num-
ber of statistical indicators per sensor (10 indicators
3 10 sensors = 100 indicators).
Nunes et al.
Sensitivity analyses regarding the number of neurons
in the hidden layer and the CDF rates are considered as
well. The number of neurons tested in the hidden layer
is 15, 25, and 50.
The ANN’s input matrix has dimensions [20 3 100],
where rows from 1 to 10 represent the fictitious damage
state and rows from 11 to 20 correspond to the struc-
tural state before reinforcement. Thus, 10 tests of this
state are used for training the networks. Matrices with
arbitrary labels (damage classes) have dimensions
[20 3 2], where rows correspond to each observation,
using a binary coding: [1 0]—fictitious damage and [0
1]—before reinforcement.
Following the procedure of Phase 1, the ANNs are
trained, the clusters are formed, and the threshold dis-
tances are calculated. The ANNs are trained using a
10-fold cross-validation method due to the number of
samples available, thus generating 10 hybrid classifiers.
As Phase 2 begins, new unknown tests belonging to
all structural configurations are presented to the trained
ANN. Again, the ANN can correctly classify 100% of
the tests relating to the damage states that they were
trained to recognize, that is, fictitious and ‘‘before
reinforcement.’’
Then, the threshold distances among the ANN out-
puts obtained for the new data and the centroids of
each cluster previously formed (Phase 1) are calculated.
Finally, it is verified whether the new data represent a
known structural behavior (fictitious state or before
reinforcement) or not, according to step 6 of section
‘‘Determination of threshold distances for clusters.’’
The hybrid classifier presents the best results when 25
neurons are used in the hidden layer and the CDF rate
is equal to 90%. The results for the 10-fold simulations
are depicted in Figure 14.
The performance of the proposed method was ade-
quate to identify both behaviors: before (known beha-
vior) and after reinforcement (novelty). Moreover, as
the number of neurons increases or decreases, the clas-
sifier’s overall performance declines. Such parameter is
also sensitive to changes and must be carefully defined.
Regarding the sensitivity analysis of the CDF rates,
the same remarks highlighted in the previous case (yel-
low frame) remain valid. When set to 97.5%, the classi-
fier succeeds in detecting known structural behavior,
but struggles in detecting new structural states. By
reducing this rate to 90%, the performance of the
hybrid method is still satisfactory in identifying known
behaviors and shows a great improvement for detecting
new ones, especially when using 25 neurons in the hid-
den layer. Results obtained with the probability rate
equal to 85% are the same as those obtained with
90%.
15
Figure 14. Confusion matrix for the hybrid classifiers when
input data are organized by ‘‘tests.’’
Final remarks and recommendations
This article presented a new strategy to detect structural
novelties (e.g. damage or modifications) based on the
analysis of acceleration measurements and on the com-
bined use of machine learning methods. Statistical indi-
cators extracted from ‘‘raw’’ acceleration measurements
were used as input data for a hybrid classifier based on
the association of ANNs with k-means clustering algo-
rithm. The proposed approach’s efficiency was assessed
through numerical and experimental tests.
In general, the hybrid classifier presented a good per-
formance, being able to not only identify previously
known behaviors but also to detect new structural con-
ditions (novelties). In fact, the main advantage of the
proposed approach is to identify new structural beha-
viors from the response of supervised methods, requir-
ing, at first, only prior knowledge of the current state of
the structure. In addition, the direct use of acceleration
measurements considerably eases the problem of dam-
age detection, as the procedure becomes more direct
and quicker, eliminating the necessity to perform any
modal identification procedures.
This new hybrid method can be employed as a valu-
able and adaptive tool for SHM systems since struc-
tural managers/engineers/operators would be able to
identify structural changes and provide inspections to
guarantee the safety of users and avoid catastrophic
events.
To use the proposed approach, some recommenda-
tions are suggested based on the results obtained as
follows:
16
1. Organization of the input data: for most cases, the
hybrid method achieved better results when these
data are organized by ‘‘tests.’’
2. Whenever possible, the use of a larger number of
samples per ‘‘structural state’’ is advised to improve
ANN’s training, thus yielding a performance of the
hybrid method.
3. The number of neurons in the hidden layer that
provided the best results was 25. However, this
quantity may vary depending on the number of
network input parameters, how noisy the data are,
and among other factors that shall be addressed
case by case; if desired, techniques—such as genetic
algorithms, Bayesian optimization, grid search,
and among others—can be used to find the optimal
number of neurons and hidden layers.
4. The CDF probability rate equal to 90% seemed to
be appropriate for most cases. However, it is
important to use more samples to better refine the
CDF fitting procedure.
Further developments of the present work comprise
a new description for the feature vectors to include
information about the frequency domain and automate
the organization for the input data matrix and defini-
tion of the CDF probability rate.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This study was financed by CAPES (Coordenacxão de
Aperfeic xoamento de Pessoal de Nı́vel Superior, PROCAD
88881.068530/2014-0), CNPq (Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Cientı́fico e Tecnológico)—grants 304329/
2019-3 and 311576/2018-4, and FAPEMIG (Fundac xão de
Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais)—grants
‘‘PPM-0002-16,’’ ‘‘PPM-0001-18,’’ and ‘‘PPM-00106-17.’’
Moreover, the authors thank IFSTTAR (former LCPC—
Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées) and SNCF
(Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Franc xais)—project
01V0527 RGCU ‘‘Evaluation dynamique des ponts’’—for the
data used in this article. The authors would like the reviewers
for their pertinent remarks, which have helped improving
parts of this paper.
ORCID iD
Alexandre Abrahão Cury https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
8860-1286
Structural Health Monitoring 00(0)
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