Vibration-based Structural Damage Detection Under Varying Temperature Conditions

In vibration-based structural damage detection, it is necessary to discriminate the variation of structural properties due to environmental changes from those caused by structural damages. The present paper aims to investigate the temperature effect on vibration-based structural damage detection in which the vibration data are measured under varying temperature conditions. A simply-supported slab was tested in laboratory to extract the vibration properties with modal testing. The slab was then damaged and the modal testing was conducted again, in which the temperature varied. The modal data measured under different temperature conditions were used to detect the damage with a two-stage model updating technique. Some damage was falsely detected if the temperature variation was not considered. Natural frequencies were then corrected to those under the same temperature conditions according to the relation between the temperature and material modulus. It is shown that all of the damaged elements can be accurately identified.