Structural damage evaluation using genetic algorithm

The detection and identification of structural damage is important in monitoring of structural systems during their lifetime. Many researchers have proposed a variety of damage evaluation methods based on structural monitoring. The stiffness matrix is used in some conventional damage detection methods; however, it leads to inevitable error due to the lack of data provided by structural monitoring. To overcome this problem, this study introduces a new damage evaluation method that identifies the structural damage in a shear building based on a genetic algorithm using the structural flexibility matrix with dynamic analyses. The proposed method enables the deduction of the extent and location of structural damage, even when there is insufficient data on the dynamic characteristics and insufficient accurate measurements of the structural stiffness and mass. The validity of the proposed damage evaluation method is demonstrated through numerical analyses using OpenSees.