Vibration-Based Crack Detection in L-Frames

This paper presents a novel non-destructive method to locate and size damages in frame structures, performed by examining and interpreting changes in measured vibration response. The method bases on a relation, prior contrived by the authors, between the strain energy distribution in the structure for the transversal vibration modes and the modal changes (in terms of natural frequencies) due to damage. Using this relation a damage location indicator DLI was derived, which permits to locate cracks in spatial structures. In this paper an L-frame is considered for proving the applicability of this method. First the mathematical expressions for the modes shapes and their derivatives were determined and simulation result compared with that obtained by finite element analysis. Afterwards patterns characterizing damage locations were derived and compared with measurement results on the real structure; the DLI permitted accurate localization of any crack placed in the two structural elements.