DAMAGE LOCATION IN STRUCTURES THROUGH A CONNECTIVISTIC USE OF FEM MODAL ANALYSES

The presence of damage in a structure gives rise to alterations in its response which make it possible to determine the ''symptomatic functi onals'' of damage. Frequency analysis may provide a summary characteri zation of the distortions in a structure's dynamic behavior (as reveal ed, for instance, by the variations in a number of modal frequencies). This paper illustrates an application involving the use of ''feedforw ard'' neural networks to locate damage in an FEM truss model on the ba sis of the modal analyses carried out on the structure in its undamage d and damaged conditions. The encouraging performance of the neural ne tworks (exploited directly in the ability to realize continuous maps) emphasize the need to work out more suitable methods for experimental applications.