Experimental investigation of structural damage detection based on the natural frequency vector

Based on the fact that for structure with small damage, its natural frequencies will have some changes compared to its primary intact state, the concept of natural frequency vector is introduced and a new method to detect small damage of structure is proposed. The principle of damage detection method is described and an 8-story shear frame structure is used to demonstrate the damage detection procedure. In the detection, the natural frequency vector assurance criterion (NFVAC) is also introduced and used as the damage index. The damage detection results show that based on the concept of natural frequency vector, the damage location and extents of the frame structure can be detected with good accuracy and this method is robust to measuring noise.