Damage localization using transmissibility functions: A critical review

International audience; This paper deals with the use of transmissibility functions for damage localization. The first part is dedicated to a critical review of the state-of-the-art highlighting the major difficulties when using transmissibility functions for damage detection and localization. In the second part, an analytical study is presented for non dispersive systems such as chain-like mass-spring systems. The link between the transmissibility function and the mechanical properties of four subsystems defined by the boundary conditions, the position of the excitation and the two measurement locations used for the computation of the transmissibility functions is derived. This result is used to discuss the situations in which damage localization is likely to work. The last section discusses the extension of these results to more general dispersive systems such as beams or plates.