Direct method of damage localization for civil structures via shape comparison of dynamic response measurements

A method of damage localization is introduced which relies on continuous wavelet transformation of the structure’s forced dynamic response. Continuous wavelet transforms represent the shape attributes of time series and enhance their delineation in the time-scale domain. As such, they allow identification of localized shape changes of dynamic responses for signal change detection. This change detection capacity enables identifying the damage-affected responses as well as formulating the characteristic effects of individual damaged components on the modeled dynamic response. The results obtained from simulated acceleration of a nine-storey building are 90% and 100% accurate with the steady-state and transient accelerations, respectively.