Artículo de publicación ISIAn hybrid real-coded Genetic Algorithm with damage penalization is implemented to locate and quantify structural damage. Genetic Algorithms provide a powerful tool to solved optimization problems. With an appropriate selection of their operators and parameters they can potentially explore the entire solution space and reach the global optimum. Here, the set-up of the Genetic Algorithm operators and parameters is addressed, providing guidelines to their selection in similar damage detection problems. The performance of five fundamental functions based on modal data is studied. In addition, this paper proposes the use of a damage penalization that satisfactorily avoids false damage detection due to experimental noise or numerical errors. A tridimensional space frame structure with single and multiple damages scenarios provides an experimental framework which verifies the approach. The method is tested with different levels of incompleteness in the measured degrees of freedom. The results show that this approach reaches a much more precise solution than conventional optimization methods. A scenario of three simultaneous damage locations was correctly located and quantified by measuring only a 6.3% of the total degrees of freedom

Modal parameters such as natural frequencies and mode shapes are sensitive indicators of structural damage. However, they are not only sensitive to damage, but also to the environmental conditions such as, humidity, wind and most important, temperature. For civil engineering structures, modal changes produced by environmental conditions can be equivalent or greater than the ones produced by damage. This article proposes a damage detection method which is able to deal with temperature variations. The objective function correlates mode shapes and natural frequencies, and a parallel genetic algorithm handles the inverse problem. The numerical model of the structure assumes that the elasticity modulus of the materials is temperature-dependent. The algorithm updates the temperature and damage parameters together. Therefore, it is possible to distinguish between temperature effects and real damage events. Simulated data of a three-span bridge and experimental one of the I-40 Bridge validate the proposed methodology. Results show that the proposed algorithm is able to assess the experimental damage despite of temperature variations.

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