Damage Identification in Footbridges from Natural Frequency Measurements

The present study aims to develop a robust structural damage identification method that can be used for the evaluation of bridge structures. An approach for the structural damage identification based on the measurement of natural frequencies is presented. The structural damage model is assumed to be associated with a reduction of a contribution to the element stiffness matrix equivalent to a scalar reduction of the material modulus. A computational procedure for the direct iteration technique based on the non-linear perturbation theory is proposed to identify structural damage. The presented damage identification technique is applied to the footbridge over the Slunjcica River near Slunj to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Using a limited number of measured natural frequencies, reduction in the stiffness of up to 100% at multiple sites is detected. The results indicate that the proposed approach can be successful in not only predicting the location of damage but also in determining the extent of structural damage.