Sensitivity analysis of the optimal solution obtained from the structural damage indentification process

An identification procedure proposed by Shen and Taylor to determine the crack characteristics (location and size of the crack) from dynamic measurements is tested. This procedure was based on minimization of either the 'mean-square' measure of difference between measurement data (natural frequencies and mode shapes) and the corresponding predictions obtained from the computational model. The procedure is tested for simulated damage in the form of symmetric cracks in a simply-supported Bernoulli-Euler beam. The sensitivity of the solution of damage identification problems to the values of parameters that characterize damage is discussed. A sensitivity formula is derived.