)$&8/7(,772(*(3$67(:(7(16&+$33(1

'(3$57(0(17%85*(5/,-.(%28:.81'(
$)'(/,1*%28:0(&+$1,&$
:'(&52</$$1
%+(9(5/((

.$7+2/,(.(
81,9(56,7(,7
/(89(1

6WDWXV

- 0$(&. 0 $%'(/ :$+$% * '( 52(&.  'DPDJH GHWHFWLRQ LQ UHLQIRUFHG
FRQFUHWH VWUXFWXUHV E\ G\QDPLF V\VWHP LGHQWLILFDWLRQ 3URFHHGLQJV ,60$ 
1RLVHDQG9LEUDWLRQ(QJLQHHULQJ/HXYHQ%HOJLXPSS6HSWHPEHU

,5-0$(&.

7(/   )$;  

(PDLOMRKDQPDHFN#EZNNXOHXYHQDFEH
Damage detection in reinforced concrete structures by
dynamic system identification

J. Maeck, M. Abdel Wahab, G. De Roeck

Department of Civil Engineering, division Structural Mechanics, K.U.Leuven, Belgium
e-mail : johan.maeck@bwk.kuleuven.ac.be

Abstract
Service loads, environmental and accidental actions may cause damage to constructions. Regular inspection
and condition assessment of engineering structures are necessary so that early detection of any defect can be
made and structure’s remaining safety and reliability can be determined. When the structural damage is
small or it is in the interior of the system, its detection cannot be done visually. A useful more elaborate non-
destructive evaluation tool is vibration monitoring. It relies on the fact that occurrence of damage or loss of
integrity in a structural system leads to changes in the dynamic properties of the structure. In this paper,
different techniques will be presented and compared to derive from experimentally determined modal
characteristics of a reinforced concrete beam its dynamic bending stiffness. The degradation of stiffness, due
to the cracking of the reinforced concrete, gives information on the position and intensity of the occurred
damage.

information is needed to localize uniquely the

1. Introduction
In the framework of developing a nondestructive
vibration testing method for monitoring the
structural integrity of constructions in civil
engineering, it is important to be able to determine
the dynamic stiffness in each section of the
structures from measured modal characteristics. The
damaged structure results in a dynamic stiffness
reduction of the cracked sections.
From the dynamic stiffnesses, one obtains
directly an idea of the extension of the cracked
zones in the structure. The dynamic stiffness
reduction can also be associated with a degree of
cracking in a particular zone. Determining the
damage parameters from modal parameter shifts
belongs to the group of inverse problems [4].
After a short description of the test set-up, the
results of a sensitivity based updating technique is
presented. The proposed updating technique uses
only measured eigenfrequencies since these are
sensitive indicators of structural integrity [9].
However methods using only eigenfrequencies
cannot distinguish damage at symmetrical locations
in a symmetric structure [3]. For a damage pattern
in a symmetric structure, also modeshape
damage.
Besides this updating technique, also a direct
stiffness calculation of the dynamic stiffness is
presented based on the quotient of the modal
bending moment to the corresponding modal
curvature. Herein, besides experimental
eigenfrequencies, also modeshapes are needed to
calculate curvatures from.
2. Test program & data processing
An experimental program is set up to establish the
relation between damage and changes of the
dynamic system characteristics. In the test program,
a concrete beam of 6 meter length is subjected to an
increasing static load to introduce cracks.
The test beam is subjected to two identical point
loads (symmetric at 1m from the middle). After
each load step (6 in total, point load being
respectively 4, 6, 12, 18, 24 and 25.3 kN), an
experimental modal analysis is performed on the
beam. A free-free set-up for the beam is established
by using very flexible springs to support the beam
(rigid body frequencies << first eigenfrequency).
Accelerometers were placed each 20cm at both
longitudinal edges of the upper side of the beam (62
measurement points in total).
 m3
m4
The sensitivity matrix, S, is defined as the first
K2
0.85m
derivative of the modal parameters (z) with respect
m7

0.5m
1.0m
to the unknown parameters (θ), i.e.;
m6 m9 hinge support
0.5m
K1 0.5m

 ∂z1 ∂z1 ∂z1 ∂z1 

0.5m

L
m2

 ∂θ ∂θ l 
1.0m

∂θ 2 ∂θ 3
m1 0.85m m8

 1 
∂z 2 ∂z 2 ∂z 2
L
∂z 2 
 ∂θ 1 ∂θ 2 ∂θ 3 ∂θ l 
hydraulic jack
m5

displacement
[ S ] nxl = ∂z 3 ∂z 3 ∂z 3 ∂z 3  (2)
 L 
roller support transducer

 ∂θ 1 ∂θ 2 ∂θ 3 ∂θ l 
L L L L L
∂z n ∂z n ∂z n ∂z n 
 ∂θ L
 1 ∂θ 2 ∂θ 3 ∂θ l 

A finite difference approximation is used to

calculate the elements of the sensitivity matrix.
Each column of the sensitivity matrix is computed
Fdyn from two finite element analyses for two θ values
differing by an incremental amount δθ. Therefore,
l+1 analyses are required to compute the sensitivity
matrix. The use of the finite difference
Figure 1 Static & dynamic set-up
approximation provides usually gradients with
acceptable accuracy especially when the gradient is
The stochastic subspace identification technique is not small. The perturbation value used in this
applied to the dynamic response of the beam in approximation should be carefully chosen in order
order to extract the modal parameters [8]. to minimize the truncation, condition and round-off
errors [6].
3. Updating technique Rewriting equation (1) in more detail:

[ zm - z j ] nx1 = [ S j ] nxl [θ j +1 - θ j ] lx1 (3)

The main goal of updating techniques is to achieve
a good agreement between experimental and
calculated numerical modal parameters. The used zm represents the measured modal parameters used
method minimizes in an iterative manner the in the updating algorithm. The subscript j indicates
differences between numerical and experimental the iteration number at which the sensitivity matrix
modal parameters. The resulting least-square is computed. The number of modal parameters (e.g.
problem is solved by the Gauss-Newton method. eigenfrequencies, mode shapes and/or modal
Practical implementation of the Gauss-Newton curvatures) is equal to n, while l is the number of
method relies upon the application of the singular unknown parameters to be updated.
value decomposition. The Gauss-Newton equation To be able to compute θj+1 from equation (3), the
is similar to the truncated Taylor series used in the inverse of the matrix Sj should be calculated. If S is
penalty function method [5]. The penalty function not square, the inverse of S does not exist and the
equation can be written in the following form: pseudo inverse S✝ is used, which can be calculated
by solving the singular value decomposition of S,
S δθ - δ z = 0 (1) i.e.;
where δz is the discrepancy between the measured
modal data and the finite element solution. δθ is the y 0
[ S ] nxl = [U ] nxn  kxk 
T
nxl [V ] lxl (4)
perturbation in the unknown parameters to be  0 0
updated. S is the Jacobian or sensitivity matrix
containing the first derivative of the calculated where k ≤ min (n,l), U and V are unitary matrices,
modal parameters (z) with respect to the unknown i.e., UT U = I and VT V = I.
parameters (θ).
The pseudo inverse of S is then computed as:
 y −1 0
[ S + ] lxn = [V ] lxl  kxk T
 lxn [U ] nxn (5)
 0 0
Now, the solution of equation (3) is:
[θ j +1 ] lx1 = [θ j ] lx1 + [ S j+ ] lxn [ zm - z j ] nx1 (6)
In equation (6), it is assumed that the measured
data are equally weighted. The lower frequencies
are in general more accurately determined than the
higher ones. Therefore, in the updating algorithm
the lower natural frequencies should be given more
weight than the higher. To account for this fact,
equation (3) is pre-multiplied by the weighting
matrix Wz , i.e.,
[Wz ] nxn [ z m - z j ] nx1 = [Wz ] nxn [S j ] lxn [θ j +1 - θ j ] lx1 (7)
The matrix Wz is a diagonal matrix containing
the weight factors for each modal component.
The updating algorithm described in this section
is implemented in the finite element program
ANSYS [2] and the matrix laboratory software
MATLAB [7].
In order to detect damage along the beam length
using model updating, one possibility is to update
the bending stiffness of each element in the finite
element model. This means that a large number of
updating parameters are required to properly
describe the variation of the bending stiffness along
the beam length. Consequently, a considerable
amount of computational time is needed to calculate
the sensitivity matrix (2). Besides, due to
measurement and/or discretization errors a realistic
damage pattern is not always guaranteed if the
bending stiffness of each element can vary
independently. Therefore it would be advantageous
to build a function that can describe a damage
pattern by only few representative parameters and
has the flexibility to represent small as well as large
damage zones. Assuming that the reduction in the
bending stiffness can be simulated by a reduction of
the E-modulus, the following function is proposed:
parameter β characterizes the relative length of the
damaged zone. It ranges between 0 to 1. If β
becomes small, a very local damage at the middle of
the beam is obtained, while if β is equal to 1, the
beam is damaged over its whole length. α
characterises the relative magnitude of damage. If α
is equal to 1, no damage is present, whereas if α
drops to zero, the bending stiffness vanishes at the
middle of the beam. The third parameter is the
power n which characterizes the variation of the E-
modulus from the centre of the beam (x=0) to the
end of the damaged zone (x=βL/2). If n is larger
than 1, a flat damage pattern is produced, otherwise
a steep pattern is obtained.
By using this proposed function, not only the
updating parameters are reduced to three but also a
realistic damage pattern is always guaranteed. It
should be noted that a symmetric damage pattern is
assumed since in the present application the beam is
loaded symmetrically. It is of course easy to account
for a non-symmetric damage pattern by assuming
two different stiffness variations at the left and the
right hand side of the centre line of the beam. In
such a case, the number of updating parameters will
be increased from 3 to 5 parameters (α, (β1, n1) for
the left-hand side and (β2, n2) for the right hand
side).
It should be noted that in transferring the damage
function to the finite element model, β is used to
calculate the number of damaged beam elements.
Figure 2 Damage function

[ ]
E = E0 1 − (1 − )cos 2
t with t = 
where β, α and n are the damage parameters. L is
the beam length and x is the distance along the
beam measured from the centre line. A sketch of the
proposed function is shown in Figure 2. The
π x 
n Before applying any static load to the beam, a
 (8)
2  β L 2 
dynamic test is performed. This test serves as a
reference for later comparison at the different
damage stages. A finite element model containing
30 beam elements is constructed. The results of this
initial model are fitted in a global way to the
reference test results. This can be done by either
updating the E-modulus or the density of the whole
beam. In Table 1, the measured natural frequencies
for the first four bending modes are given for the
reference test of the beam and compared to the
finite element results. The E-modulus is adapted to
give the best agreement with the test results. It can
be seen that the difference between the finite
element results and the measured natural
frequencies is in general less than 1%. This means
that the beam model represents the measurement
quite well and can be used with confidence for
damage detection after each load step.
Mode 1 2
Measured 21.9 60.3
F.E. 22.16 60.66
% difference 1.1 0.6
Table 1 Natural frequencies – reference test –
E=38.0 109 N/m2, ρ=2500 kg/m3
The updating algorithm is now applied to the beam
at the different load steps. The natural frequencies
of the first four bending modes are used as modal
parameters (vector z) in the updating algorithm.
The three damage parameters β, α and n are
considered as updating parameters (vector θ)
making a 4×3 sensitivity matrix ([S]4×3). β is
converged to values less than 1.0 for the first three
load steps indicating that the whole beam is not yet
damaged. At load step 4, β reaches 1.0 already. α
varies from 0.85 (15% damage) at step 1 up to 0.49
(51% damage) at step 6. n converged to values
between 1.4 to 2.2. Figure 3 shows the evolution of
damage along the beam length for the different load
steps.
7
beam 3
6.5
x 10
6
5.5
5 (10)
EI
4.5
4
3.5
3
0 1 2 3 4 5
length (m)
Figure 3 Stiffness degradation for all loadsteps
4. Direct stiffness calculation
The direct stiffness calculation uses the
experimental modeshapes in deriving the dynamic
stiffness. The big advantage is that no numerical
model is needed to obtain the dynamic stiffness
distribution for statically determined structures. For
hyperstatic structures, the reaction forces and
consequently the internal forces are dependent on
the stiffness of the structure. Therefore an iterative
procedure is applied to a numerical model to find
the EI distribution of a hyperstatic structure.
3 4
117.0 192.0 The method makes use of the basic relation that the
117.74 192.13 dynamic bending stiffness in each section is equal
0.6 0.06 to the bending moment in that section divided by
the corresponding curvature. The eigenvalue
problem for the undamped system can be written as:
K ϕ =ω2 M ϕ (9)
in which K is the stiffness matrix, M the (analytical)
mass matrix, ϕ the measured modeshape and ω the
measured eigenpulsation. This can be seen as a
pseudo static system: for each mode internal
(section) forces are due to inertial forces which can
be calculated as the product of local mass and local
acceleration (= ω2.ϕ). A lumped mass matrix is used
in (9). As the measurement mesh is rather dense,
this is acceptable. Alternative is using the consistent
mass matrix, which is not done in the present paper.
The contribution of rotational inertia is proven to be
negligible in the present case.
Because of the free-free set-up in the dynamic
tests, the internal forces should be in static
equilibrium. Due to measurement errors, this is not
exactly the case. Therefore a Gram-Schmidt
orthogonalization is applied to the experimental
modeshapes. The corrected ϕ' can be calculated
from:
x1T M ϕ’ = 0
x2T M ϕ’ = 0
step 1 with ϕ' = ϕ + a.x1 + b.x2 and x1, x2 respectively the
step 2
step
step
3
4
translational and rotational rigid body mode of the
step
step
5
6
free beam. Equation (10) is in fact nothing else than
imposing the total vertical and moment equilibrium
6
of the inertial forces of the beam.
From (9), using the orthogonalized modeshape,
the bending moment in each section is now
determined.
The next step in deriving the dynamic bending
stiffness consists of the calculation of the curvatures
along the beam for each modeshape. Direct
calculation of curvatures from measured
modeshapes, e.g. by using the central difference
approximation, results in oscillating and inaccurate
values.
A smoothing procedure accounting for the
inherent inaccuracies of the measured modeshapes
should be applied. Therefore a weighted residual
penalty-based technique is adopted which closely
resembles the finite element approach.
The beam is divided in a number of elements
separated by nodes corresponding to the
measurement points. Each node has 3 degrees of
freedom: the modal displacement va, the rotation ψ
and the curvature κ, which are approximated
independently (Figure 4). Linear shape functions
are used.
v =v N +v N
a a,1 1 a,2 2
= N + N
1 1 2 2
= N + N
1 1 2 2
Figure 4 Finite element variables
This is analogous to the Mindlin plate element, for
which the rotations are approximated independently
from the bending deflection.
The objective function, which has to be
respectively the first derivatives of displacements
and rotations are minimized. The weight of these
extra conditions is set by the penalty factors α and
β.
Advantages of this Mindlin approach is that
directly curvatures are available, boundary
conditions can be imposed easily (in this
experimental set-up curvatures at the free beam
ends have to be zero) and the approximated modal
deflections have not to go through all measurement
points. A drawback is the difficulty to choose
appropriate penalty factors. Too high values cause
locking of the system. Therefore alternatives with
quadratic displacement, linear rotation and constant
curvature interpolations have been studied.
In the following, α and β are chosen in such way
that the median of the relative error on the modal
deflections is 2-3%, which is a reasonable
estimation of the anticipated measurement
inaccuracy. Hence, every modeshape has its own
penalty factors.
Figure 5 shows for the first modeshape the
different finite element variables along the beam
axis in the reference (undamaged) state. Figure 5a
shows the approximated vs. the experimental
modeshape (+), figure 5b the relative error, figure
5c and 5d the modal rotations and curvatures.
median 0.021
0.3 0.1

minimized, contains the difference between 0.2 0.08

relative error
modeshape

0.1 0.06
approximative and measured modeshapes. Two
0 0.04
penalty terms are added to enforce continuity of -0.1 0.02
rotations and curvatures in a mean, smeared way. -0.2 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-a- -b-

(v a − ϕ m ) 2 /e 2 dv
∫ ∫
0.3 0.14

= dx + ( − a ) 2 dx 0.2 0.12

2 2 dx (11)
0.1 0.1
curvature
rotation

0 0.08

/ e4
d 2
+ ∫ ( −
-0.1 0.06
) dx minimum -0.2 0.04
2 dx -0.3 0.02

-0.4 0

ϕm denotes the measured modeshape, and L is the e 0 1 2 3

-c-
4 5 6 0 1 2 3
-d-
4 5 6

length of a finite element. Elements are chosen in

such way that nodes coincide with measurement
points.
The first term expresses that the average
difference between approximation and measurement
has to be minimized. Without any other terms in the
potential function one will find a (piecewise linear)
approximation through all measurement points. In
order to obtain a filtering of experimental errors and
so a smoothing of the deflection, two extra terms
are added. Differences between the (independent)
approximations of rotations and curvatures with
Figure 5 va vs. ϕm , relative error, ψ and κ for
1st bending mode of beam.
To obtain the dynamic bending stiffness for the
reference state, one should calculate the bending
moments. Figure 6 shows the results for the first
bending mode. Figure 6a shows the measured and
the (almost identical) orthogonalized modeshape,
according to (10), plotted upon each other. Figure
6b shows the distributions of inertia forces
according to (9) from which the modal shear forces
and bending moments can be determined (Figure 6c 7.E+06

& 6d). Dividing now the sectional bending moments 6.E+06

by the modal curvatures (Figure 6e, from Figure 5),

5.E+06
one obtains the dynamic bending stiffness (Figure
6f). 4.E+06

EI (Nm2)
3.E+06
5
x 10
0.6 2

0.4 2.E+06
reference step1
modeshape

inertia force 1
0.2 step2 step3
0 1.E+06
0 step4 step5
-0.2 -1 step6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0.E+00
5 5
x 10 -a- x 10 -b-
5 10
2 2.5 3 3.5 4
bending moment
shear force

7.E+06
0 5

6.E+06
-5 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-c- x 10
6
-d- 5.E+06
0.2 8

EI (Nm2)
0.15 6 4.E+06
dynamic EI
curvature

0.1 4

0.05 2 3.E+06
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 2.E+06
-e- -f- reference step1
step2 step3
1.E+06
step4 step5
Figure 6 EI for 1st bending modes of beam. 0.E+00
step6

2 2.5 3 3.5 4
7.E+06
From Figure 6 it can be noticed that at the sections
6.E+06
of almost-zero moments (or almost-zero curvatures),
5.E+06
the approximation for EI is not accurate anymore.
Higher modes have even more sections with zero
EI (Nm2)

4.E+06

curvatures (Figure 7). Combining information of 3.E+06

different modes can give a solution.
2.E+06
reference step1
step2 step3
8.E+06 1.E+06
step4 step5
step6
0.E+00
7.E+06 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
7.E+06

6.E+06 6.E+06
EI (Nm2)

5.E+06
5.E+06
4.E+06
EI (Nm2)

4.E+06 Mode 1
3.E+06
Mode 2
Mode 3
Mode 4 2.E+06
3.E+06 reference step1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1.E+06 step2 step3
step4 step5
step6
Figure 7 EI for first 4 bending modes (reference 0.E+00
2 2.5 3 3.5 4
state)
Figure 8 Dynamic stiffness degradation for first
The Figures 5, 6 & 7 dealt with the reference four bending modes
undamaged state without any static preload. The
same can be done after each load step, to examine The beam zone from 2m to 4m is a zone of almost
the dynamic (bending) stiffness degradation. The constant static bending moment, which should result
evolution of the dynamic bending stiffness through in the same cracking and consequently the same
different loadsteps is shown in Figure 8. In each dynamic stiffness. Due to the own weight of the
plot information of one mode is used. beam the bending moments in the middle are
slightly higher and so the reduction of the dynamic
stiffness. It can be noticed that the stiffness
degradation derived from the third and certainly
from the fourth bending mode is less accurate.
Results from the first two bending modes are
comparable, except from the central zone for the
second mode, which is inaccurate due to zero by
zero division.
In Figure 9 the degraded dynamic bending
stiffness is plotted versus the bending moment of
the preceeding static test, using updating as well as
direct stiffness calculation results. The own weight
is also accounted for in the moment calculation.
Figure 9 shows that after the first loadstep, the
bending stiffness already decreases by about 20 %.
6.5E+06
6.0E+06
5.5E+06
EI (Nm2)
5.0E+06
4.5E+06
4.0E+06
direct stiffness calculation using 1st mode
3.5E+06 direct stiffness calculation using 2nd mode
sensitivity based updating
3.0E+06
0 10 20 30 40
M static (kNm)
Figure 9 Dynamic stiffness degradation vs. static
load history
The stiffness degradation calculated from the direct
stiffness method corresponds well with updating
results.
5. Conclusion
The present paper describes two techniques to
calculate the stiffness degradation of a damaged
reinforced concrete beam. The starting point of the
techniques is completely different.
Since the updating techniques are using only
experimental eigenfrequencies, which can be
cheaply acquired, this approach provides an
inexpensive structural assessment technique. One
accelerometer at a well-chosen location can provide
the eigenfrequency information.
A drawback in that case is that no information is
available on correspondence of the numerical to the
experimental modeshapes. Another disadvantage of
using only eigenfrequencies is that these are also
sensitive to environmental influences [1]. This
means that a procedure is needed to separate the
effects due to damage from those due to
environmental changes. As mentioned earlier, to
detect asymmetric damage in a symmetric structure
in a unique manner, also modeshape information is
necessary.
On the contrary, the direct stiffness calculation
makes use of the experimental modeshapes to
derive the dynamic stiffness from modal curvature
calculation. The advantage of the latter method is
that no numerical model is needed to obtain the
dynamic stiffness distribution. However a rather
dense measurement grid is necessary to be able to
identify accurately the curvatures of the higher
modes.
When results of the updating are compared to
those from the direct stiffness method, one can
notice that both methods estimate a dynamic
stiffness decrease of around 50% after the ultimate
loadstep.
Acknowledgements
This work was carried out in the framework of
FKFO-project No. G.0243.96, supported by the
50 Belgium National Fund for Scientific Research.
References
1. Abdel Wahab M., De Roeck G., Effect of
temperature on dynamic system parameters of a
highway bridge, Structural Engineering
International, No.4, pp.266-270, 1997.
2. ANSYS revision 5.3, Swanson Analysis
System, 1994.
3. Choy, F.K., R. Liang, P. Xu, Fault
Identification of Beams on Elastic Foundation,
Computers and Geotechnics, Vol.17, pp. 57–
176, 1995.
4. Doebling S.W., Farrar C.F., Prime M.B.,
Shevitz D.W., Damage identification and health
monitoring of structural and mechanical
systems from changes in their vibration
characteristics: a literature review, Research
report LA-13070-MS, ESA-EA, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New
Mexico, 1996.
5. Friswell, M.I. and Mottershead, J.E., Finite
element model updating in structural dynamics,
KLUWER Academic Publisher, Dordrechts,
The Netherlands, 1995.
6. Gill, P., Murray, W. and Wright, M., Practical
optimisation, Academic Press Limited, San
Diego, 1981.
7. MATLAB revision 5.2, The Mathworks Inc.,
1998.
8. Peeters B., Abdel Wahab M., De Roeck G., De
Visscher J., De Wilde W.P., Ndambi J.-M.,
Vantomme J., Evaluation of Structural Damage
by Dynamic System Identification, Proceedings
of ISMA21, Vol.3, Leuven, Belgium, 1349-
1361, 1996.
9. Salawu O.S., Detection of structural damage
through changes in frequency: a review, Eng.
Structures, Vol.19, No. 9, pp.718-723, 1997.