Rank-revealing QR decomposition applied to damage localization in truss structures

Summary The purpose of this work is the development of an efficient and high-sensitive damage localization technique for truss structures, based on the rank-revealing QR decomposition (RRQR) of the difference-of-flexibility matrix. The method is an enhancement of the existing techniques of damage detection, which rely on the set of so-called damage locating vector (DLV). The advantages of the RRQR decomposition-based DLV (RRQR-DLV) method are its less computational effort and high sensitivity to damage. Compared with the frequently used stochastic DLV (SDLV) method, RRQR-DLV offers higher sensitivity to damage, which has been validated based on the presented numerical simulation. The effectiveness of the proposed RRQR-DLV method is also illustrated with the experimental validation based on a laboratory-scale Bailey truss bridge model. The proposed method works under ambient excitation such as traffic excitation and wind excitation; therefore, it is promising for real-time damage monitoring of truss structures. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.