Structural Health Monitoring with Self-Organizing Maps and Artificial Neural Networks

The use of self-organizing maps and artificial neural networks for structural health monitoring is presented in this paper. The authors recently developed a nonparametric structural damage detection algorithm for extracting damage indices from the ambient vibration response of a structure. The algorithm is based on self-organizing maps with a multilayer feedforward pattern recognition neural network. After the training of the self-organizing maps, the algorithm was tested analytically under various damage scenarios based on stiffness reduction of beam members and boundary condition changes of a grid structure. The results indicated that proposed algorithm can successfully locate and quantify damage on the structure.