Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Damage detection using artificial neural network with consideration of

uncertainties
Norhisham Bakhary ∗ , Hong Hao, Andrew J. Deeks
School of Civil and Resource Engineering, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia

Received 27 October 2006; received in revised form 8 January 2007; accepted 8 January 2007
Available online 12 March 2007

Abstract

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have received increasing attention for use in detecting damage in structures based on vibration modal
parameters. However, uncertainties existing in the finite element model used and the measured vibration data may lead to false or unreliable
output result from such networks. In this study, a statistical approach is proposed to take into account the effect of uncertainties in developing an
ANN model. By applying Rosenblueth’s point estimate method verified by Monte Carlo simulation, the statistics of the stiffness parameters are
estimated. The probability of damage existence (PDE) is then calculated based on the probability density function of the existence of undamaged
and damaged states. The developed approach is applied to detect simulated damage in a numerical steel portal frame model and also in a laboratory
tested concrete slab. The effects of using different severity levels and noise levels on the damage detection results are discussed.
c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Damage detection; Neural networks; Uncertainties; Rosenblueth’s point estimate; Random noise; Modal data

1. Introduction Pandey and Barai [3] provided a more detailed treatment of

Various structural health monitoring techniques have been
researched in order to obtain a reliable and efficient approach
to increase the safety of civil engineering structures. Many
different techniques have been proposed and investigated
ranging from application of electrical impedance techniques
to structural dynamics approaches. Among these techniques,
structural dynamics approaches have been extensively explored
by many researchers, as they can provide information on
unforeseen potential failure mechanisms. Since the earliest
work by Cawley and Adams [1], dynamics parameters such as
natural frequencies, and mode shapes have been widely applied
for damage detection, as the modal parameters are functions of
structural properties. This implies that any degradation of the
structural properties results in changes of the modal parameters.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been utilized by
many researchers to identify damage location and severity from
various types of input and output variables, as they provide an
efficient tool for pattern recognition. Wu et al. [2] explored the
use of an ANN to detect member damage in a 3-storey frame.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 8 6488 3072; fax: +61 8 6488 1044.
E-mail address: bakhary@civil.uwa.edu.au (N. Bakhary).
ANN architecture in their study identifying damage in a 21-
bar bridge truss. Zhao et al. [4] applied a counter-propagation
neural network to detect damage and support movement in
a continuous beam. Zapico [5] developed a procedure for
damage assessment of steel structures based on ANN. Most
of the studies concluded that ANNs are capable of providing
correct damage identification, especially when the structural
damage and the associated changes in vibration properties are
simulated numerically and are error free. However, in practice
uncertainties in the FE model parameters and modelling errors
are inevitable. The existence of modelling error in the FE
model due to the inaccuracy of physical parameters, non-
ideal boundary conditions, finite element discretization and
nonlinear structural properties may result in the vibration
parameters generated from such a FE model not exactly
representing the relationship between the modal parameters
and the damage parameters of the real structure. On the other
hand, the existence of measurement error in the measured data
that is normally used as testing data in an ANN model is
also unavoidable. Since the efficiency of an ANN prediction
relies on the accuracy of both components, the existence of
these uncertainties may result in false and inaccurate ANN
predictions. Therefore, the impact of uncertainties on the

c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

0141-0296/$ - see front matter

doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2007.01.013
 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815
reliability of ANN models for structural damage detection
needs to be analysed.
Several studies have considered uncertainty in application of
ANN [6–9], and the noise injection learning method proposed
by Matsuoka [10] has been a popular method of considering
the uncertainties in ANN applications. Through this method,
certain amounts of noise are applied to the training data to
consider either modelling error or measurement error. However,
studies that consider both errors in the FE model and noises in
measurement data are quite limited.
The objective of this paper is to study the influence of
uncertainty on damage identification using a combination of
frequency and mode shape as the input variables. To consider
the uncertainties in the FE modelling and the measurement
data, an approach introduced by Papadopoulos and Garcia [11]
is applied. Using this method, the probability of damage
existence (PDE) can be estimated by comparing the probability
distribution of the undamaged and damaged models. To
consider the effect of FE modelling error, a statistical ANN
model is trained with vibration data generated from the FE
model, but smeared with random variations. To include the
effect of noise in the measurement data, the testing data used
as input to the statistical ANN model for damage identification
are also smeared with random noises.
The probability moments of the undamaged and damaged
states of the structural parameters are estimated using the point
estimation method and verified by Monte Carlo simulation. The
Monte Carlo simulation data is also used to determine the type
of probability distribution function of the structural parameters
of both the undamaged and damaged states. The PDEs are
determined from the probability distribution for each structural
member.
A numerical steel frame model and a laboratory tested
two-span reinforced concrete slab are used to demonstrate
the developed procedure. Some parametric calculations are
also performed to investigate the influences of using different
noise levels and damage severities on the damage identification
results. In this study, only random errors are considered. The
systematic errors which may also exist, especially in FE model
are not considered in the present study.
2. Theoretical background
In this study, the uncertainties in the FE model and the
measurement data are assumed to be normally distributed
independent random variables with zero means and specified
coefficients of variation. This implies that the parameters with
uncertainties are equal to true values plus the random variations.
Thus, the frequencies, mode shapes and stiffness parameters for
training and testing are derived as below:
λi = λi0 + λi0 X λi = λi0 (1 + X λi )
λ̂i = λ̂i0 + λ̂i0 X λi = λ̂i0 (1 + X λi )
φi = φi0 + φi0 X φi = φi0 (1 + X φi )
φ̂i = φ̂i0 + φ̂i0 X φi = φ̂i0 (1 + X φi )
α j = α 0j + α 0j X α j = α 0j (1 + X α j )
2807
Table 1
Training functions and testing variables used in point estimation method
Model Training function Testing variable
Input Output
1 α j++ = fn(λi0 + σλi , φi0 + σφi ) λ̂i0 + σλi , φ̂i0 + σφi α̂++
2 α j−− = fn(λi0 − σλi , φi0 − σφi ) λ̂i0 − σλi , φ̂i0 − σφi α̂−−
3 α j+− = fn(λi0 + σλi , φi0 − σφi ) λ̂i0 + σλi , φ̂i0 − σφi α̂+−
4 α j−+ = fn(λi0 − σλi , φi0 + σφi ) λ̂i0 − σλi , φ̂i0 + σφi α̂−+
where λi , φi and λ̂i , φ̂i are the ith frequencies and mode shapes
for training and testing, respectively, and α j is a parameter
related to the stiffness of the jth segment. The change of
stiffness parameters is described by the reduction of Young’s
modulus (E values). Stiffness Reduction Factor (SRF) defined
as the ratio of E value change to the initial E value is used as the
damage indicator. Superscript ‘0’ represents the corresponding
mean value and X λi , X φi , X αi are the zero mean normally
distributed random variables with specific COV in frequencies,
mode shapes and stiffness parameters, which are assumed in
this study to be the same for both training and testing data.
In this study, both the training and testing data sets contain
randomly varying errors or noises. Because of the randomly
varying training data set, the trained ANN model will be
statistical with probability distribution parameters such as mean
and standard deviation for each variable. Moreover, since the
testing data set is random, the ANN prediction of the condition
of each variable, in this case the Young’s modulus of each
structural member, is also statistical. The most direct method
to obtain the probability parameters is Monte Carlo simulation.
However, Monte Carlo simulation requires high computational
effort and is very time consuming. Another approach is to
attempt a theoretical solution, but it is very difficult to obtain
a closed form solution of probability distributions for such
a multi degree of freedom dynamic system, and derivation
of such a solution is beyond the scope of this study. In this
study the probability moments of the undamaged and damaged
states of the structural parameters are approximated using
the point estimation method introduced by Rosenblueth [12].
By using this method, the mean values E(α) and standard
deviation σ (α) of each variable can be calculated based on
the upper limit (αi+ ) and the lower limit (αi− ) of the function
corresponding to the ith variable. The upper and lower limit
can be obtained by using mean plus one standard deviation and
mean minus one standard deviation of each random variable
in training and testing of the ANN model. Since two variables
are used (frequency and mode shape) in this study, two upper
limits (α++ , α−+ ) and two lower limit (α−− , α+− ) need to be
obtained. Thus, four ANN models are developed by considering
(1a) the mean values and standard deviations (σ ) of the random
noises applied to each variable. The training functions and the
(1b)
input and output variables for testing are listed in Table 1.
(1c) The relationship between input and output for ANN model is
denoted by fn(·).
(1d)
The expectation (mean value, µα ) and standard deviation
(1e) (σα ) of α can then be approximately calculated by:
2808 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815
Fig. 1. Probability density functions for α j and α 0j and probability of damage
j
existence, Pd .
1
µα = E(α) = (α̂++ + α̂−− + α̂+− + α̂−+ )
4
1
σα = [E(α 2 ) − [E(α)]2 ] 2
where E(α 2 ) is calculated using Eq. (2) with α 2 terms
substituted for the α terms. Using this approach substantially
reduces the computational time in deriving the statistical mean
and standard deviation of each stiffness parameter for structural
condition monitoring.
The PDE can be estimated from statistical distributions
of the stiffness parameters of the undamaged and damaged
models. For example, if the stiffness parameter (α j ) of the
undamaged segment j is normally distributed with mean E(α j )
and standard deviation σ (α j ), the probability density function
can be obtained as illustrated in Fig. 1, where L α j is the lower
bound of the healthy parameter. In this study, the confidence
level is set to 95%, thus the lower bound is L α j = E(α j ) −
1.645σ (α j ), which indicates that there is a probability of
95% that the healthy stiffness parameter falls in the range of
[E(α j )−1.645σ (α j ), ∞]. Similarly, for the stiffness parameter
of segment j in the damaged state (α 0j ), the distribution is again
assumed as normal with mean E(α 0j ) and standard deviation
σ (α 0j ), and the corresponding probability density function is
also plotted in Fig. 1. The PDE is defined as the probability of
α 0j not being within the 95% confidence healthy interval. Thus
the PDE of segment j is
j
Pd = 1 − prob(L α j ≤ xα 0 ≤ ∞)
= prob(−∞ ≤ xα 0 ≤ L α j ).
PDE is a value between 0 and 1, and if the PDE of a segment
is close to 1, then it is most likely the element is damaged. If
the PDE is close to 0, damage existing in the element is very
unlikely [13]. It should be noted that the stiffness parameters
of the undamaged and damaged state have normal distributions
because the random variations in Eq. (1) are assumed as
zero mean normally distributed random variables. This will be
proved later.
3. Methodology
A multilayer perceptron with Levenberg–Marquardt back-
propagation algorithm is utilized to train the ANN model in
this study. Sigmoid functions are employed as nonlinear activa-
tion functions for all layers. To reduce the effect of overfitting,
the early-stopping method [14] is applied during the training.
(2)
(3)
Fig. 2. Finite element model of the frame.
The input data consist of natural frequencies and mode shapes,
and the output layers consists of Young’s modulus (E values)
to represent the stiffness parameter. The change of the stiffness
parameter or the damage severity for each segment are denoted
by a Stiffness Reduction Ratio (SRF), defined as
E0
SRF = 1 − (5)
E
where E is the Young’s modulus in the intact state and E 0 is
that at the damage level of interest.
In most ANN applications for damage detection, the training
data are obtained from FE analysis, which involved generating
large number of damage cases based on an initial baseline FE
model. Once the ANN model is well-trained, the testing data
are then applied to the ANN model to obtain the locations and
severities of any damages. In most of the previous studies, both
training and testing data are assumed to be free from modelling
and measurement error. In practice, however, modelling error
and measurement noise are inevitable.
According to Xia [15], the inaccuracy due to modelling and
measurement error can be overcome by taking into account
(4) the uncertainties through a statistical method. In this study,
modelling error and measurement noise are assumed to be
normally distributed with zero means and specific variance. The
noise is applied in terms of coefficient of variations (COV). The
statistical properties of E value for each segment are obtained
by using Rosenblueth’s point estimation method verified by
Monte Carlo simulation. A Kolmorogov–Smirnov goodness-of-
fit test (K–S test) is then applied to verify the distribution type
of E values. This is followed by calculation of the PDE of E
values for each segment.
4. Numerical example
To demonstrate the proposed method, the single span steel
portal frame shown in Fig. 2 is used as an example. The
cross section of beam is 40.50 × 6.0 mm2 , and column is
50.50 × 6.0 mm2 . The span length and height of the frame are
 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815
Table 2
E values for scenario 1 and scenario 2
Segment 1 2 3 4 5 6
Scenario 1 0.4× E 1.0× E 1.0× E 0.2× E 1.0× E
Scenario 2 0.4× E 1.0× E 0.3× E 1.0× E 0.4× E
Table 3
First three frequencies values for scenario 1 and scenario 2
Undamaged Scenario 1
Mode 1 4.628 3.9373
Mode 2 16.112 12.567
Mode 3 20.649 16.491
Fig. 3. First three mode shapes for undamaged, scenario 1 and scenario 2.
both 1000 mm. Rigid connections are applied between the beam
and the columns, and the supports are assumed as clamped.
11 2
The material properties used are: E = 2.1 × 10 N/m , ρ =
7.67 × 103 , v = 0.2. The frame is modelled with 10 elements in
each member. To reduce the complexity of ANN training, the
frame is divided to six segments as shown in the figure. Each
segment consists of five elements.
Modal analysis is conducted using the FE model to
generate input and output data to train the ANN models. Two
damage scenarios are generated to assess the ANN prediction
performance. Scenario 1 consists of damage in two segments of
the frame (1 & 4), and scenario 2 consists of damage in four
segments (1, 3, 5 & 6). The damage is imposed by reducing the
E values of each corresponding segment. Table 2 shows the E
values for scenario 1 and scenario 2. The frequencies and mode
shapes of the first three modes are shown in Table 3 and Fig. 3.
To train the ANN model, 1200 data sets are generated
from the FE model based on the Latin hypercube sampling
method [16]. To apply the early-stopping method, the data are
divided into three parts in a ratio of 2:1:1. A trial and error
method based on Kalmorogov and Lippmann’s approach [17]
was utilized to attain the best ANN topology. To reduce the
‘curse of dimensionality’ as discussed by Bishop [18], only nine
mode shape points and frequencies for the first three modes
were used as the input parameters. The output parameters are
Young’s modulus (E values) of every segment. The numbers
of neurons in the input and output layers are the same as the
respective number of input and output variables. The best ANN
model is obtained with 97 hidden neurons.
The trained ANN model is then assessed by introducing
the modal parameters of the two damage scenarios mentioned
above. Fig. 4 shows the predicted E values in comparison with
2809
the actual values. The results show that the ANN model is
able to provide good output, which indicates that the ANN
model is reliable in detecting damage from noise-free data.
1.0 × E To investigate the reliability of the ANN model in predicting
0.3 × E structural damage with noisy data, 2% and 15% random noise
are applied respectively to the frequencies and mode shapes of
the testing data. Applying these errors implies that the measured
data is no longer exact. These data are then introduced to the
trained ANN model. Fig. 5 shows the ANN output.
Scenario 2 The figure shows that for scenario 1, the false damage
3.530 identification occurs at segments 2 and 3, while the stiffness
11.269 of segment 6 is overpredicted. The same situation occurred in
14.891 scenario 2, where the ANN model falsely identifies damage
at segment 2, overestimates damage at segments 1 and 3, but
underestimates at segment 6. This indicates that the common
ANN model trained with simulated vibration parameters from
finite element model cannot give reliable structural damage
prediction if the errors exist.
4.1. Statistical artificial neural network
As demonstrated above, noise in measured data may lead
to unreliable and false prediction of structural damage. To
consider the uncertainties in the FE model and in the measured
data, normally distributed random noises with zero means
and specific variance are added to training data. The noise
levels of the frequencies and mode shapes are also assumed
to be 2% and 15% respectively. These data are then used to
train the ANN model. A statistical ANN model is developed
using the Rosenblueth’s point estimation method. To verify
the reliability of the Rosenblueth’s point estimation method,
the mean values and standard deviations of every segment
in the undamaged state are obtained by using both the point
estimation method and Monte Carlo simulation. In Monte
Carlo simulation, randomly distributed training data and testing
data are generated and used to predict structural damage. The
training and testing process is repeated until the mean values
and standard deviations of E values converge. The Monte Carlo
simulations converge after about 125 iterations. Fig. 6 shows
the Monte Carlo simulation result. The Monte Carlo simulation
data are also used to determine the distribution type of the E
value. A Kolmorogov–Smirnov goodness-of-fit test (K–S test)
is applied to verify the accuracy of the selected distribution
type of E values. The results show that the E values have
normal type of characteristic. Fig. 7 illustrates the cumulative
distribution function (CDF) for segment 3 as compared with
the theoretical one. Based on the goodness-of-fit test, a normal
distribution hypothesis of the E values for all segments is
accepted with a confidence level of 95%. Fig. 8 shows the
mean values and COV of E values obtained from both methods.
It is observed that both methods provide quite similar results,
indicating the point estimation method is reliable.
Using the trained ANN model with 2% and 15% random
errors (COV) in frequencies and mode shapes, and the testing
data with the same level of noise, the mean values and standard
deviations of structural stiffness parameters corresponding to
the two damage scenarios are estimated. From the normally
2810 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815

Fig. 4. ANN prediction for scenario 1 and scenario 2 compared to the actual value using noise-free input data.

Fig. 5. ANN prediction for scenario 1 and scenario 2 compared to the actual value using noisy input data.

Fig. 6. Monte Carlo simulation result.

Table 4
Probability of damage existence (%) for every segment of scenario 1 and
scenario 2
Segment
1 2 3 4 5 6
Scenario 1 96.0 38.5 3.0 99.8 0.00 0.00
Scenario 2 99.7 1.0 100.0 13.5 99.7 99.9

distributed probability density function of the damaged and

undamaged states, the PDEs can be calculated. The PDEs for
scenario 1 and scenario 2 are listed in Table 4.
From Table 4, it is observed that in scenario 1, the PDEs
of segments 1 and 4 are very high and the PDEs of the other
segments are low. This indicates that it is very likely damage
Fig. 7. K–S test result for segment 3.
exists in segments 1 and 4 only. For scenario 2, the highest
 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815 2811

Fig. 8. Mean values and coefficients of variation (COV) of E values in undamaged state.

Table 5 In order to investigate the effect of different uncertainty

Probability of damage existence (%) for different damage severities levels on the proposed damage identification method, four ANN
Severity level (%) Segment models are developed. Each model is trained using the training
1 2 3 4 5 6 data that is generated from the same baseline FE model but
−25 100.0 14.3 0.0 100.0 5.8 0.0
smeared with different levels of uncertainties in frequencies
−10 89.1 3.5 4.5 71.2 8.9 1.5 and mode shapes respectively. These levels are (1) 0.0% and
−7 62.6 3.2 3.9 47.1 6.5 1.8 0.0%, (2) 0.5% and 5.0% (3)1.0% and 10.0% and (4) 2.0%
−5 38.0 3.0 3.5 29.3 5.1 2.0 and 15.0%. The trained models are then tested with testing data
−2 10.0 2.7 2.9 8.9 3.4 2.3 which are also smeared with different levels of uncertainties. In
this case, −25% damage levels are applied to segments 1 and 4.
PDE occurred at segments 1, 3, 5 and 6, which are also the true Table 6(a)–(d) illustrate the results in terms of PDE of different
damage locations. These results show that using the proposed combinations of uncertainties in training and testing data.
statistical ANN model, the damages are detected with high Table 6(a) lists the PDEs of each segment when the ANN
confidence and undamaged segments are less likely to be falsely model is trained with deterministic data. It is evident that the
identified, as compared to the common ANN model. However, ANN model trained with deterministic data performed poorly
further investigation needs to be conducted in order to see the when tested with noisy data. For example, the highest PDEs are
sensitivity of different uncertainty levels to the result, so does observed at segments 1 and 6 when the network is tested with
the damage severities. 0.5% (frequencies) and 5% (mode shapes) uncertainties. The
ANN model gets more unreliable when the testing data contain
higher noise.
4.2. Parametric study
Table 6(b) shows the results obtained when the ANN model
was trained with noisy data with COV 0.5% for frequencies
More detailed studies are carried out in this part to and 5% for mode shapes. From the results, it is observed that
investigate the sensitivity of the proposed method to different in most cases the highest PDEs are obtained at segments 1
damage levels and different uncertainties levels. and 4, which indicates that the damage is correctly identified.
To assess the reliability of the proposed method at different The results show that the highest PDEs are obtained when the
damage levels, an analysis is performed by varying the damage testing data also has noise with COV 0.5% for frequencies
level, while the uncertainty level remains unchanged. Damage and 5% for mode shapes, as might be expected. When the
is introduced to segments 1 and 4 and results generated using measured data contains a significantly higher noise level than
the FE model with SRF equal to −25%, −10%, −7%, −5% and the training data, i.e. 5% in frequency and 40% in mode shape,
−2%. The uncertainty level is constant at 1% for frequencies, the method, nevertheless, fails to give correct identification of
and 10% for mode shapes. By using the same method as damage locations.
described above, the PDE of each segment is calculated. The The same situation occurs when higher uncertainties are
PDEs are listed in Table 5. It is observed that the highest PDEs applied to the training data. Table 6(c) and (d) show the results
occurred at the correct damage location (segments 1 and 4) for when the training data are smeared with 1% and 10%, and 2%
all cases. The results also show the highest PDEs are gained and 15% noise in frequencies and mode shapes respectively. In
with a −25% damage level and the lowest are with a −2% most cases the damage can be detected correctly. The highest
damage. The results indicate that when the damage is severer, confidence levels are obtained when the noise level in the
it can be confidently identified. However, when the damage training and testing data are the same. It is also clear that
is not significant, the damage cannot be detected confidently, the PDEs values decreased when the difference between the
although the damaged segments always have higher PDEs than uncertainty levels in training and testing data increased. This
the undamaged segments. The reason is that when the damage may indicate that if the uncertainties in either the training
levels are small, the changes of modal parameters are not so data or the testing data are larger than each other, the true
apparent, and the influences of modelling and measurement information is submerged in noise, and thus the actual damage
noises are comparatively more significant. location cannot be identified accurately.
2812 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815

Table 6
Probability of damage existence (%) for different combination of uncertainties in training and testing data

Uncertainties level in testing data Segment

Frequencies (%) Mode shapes (%) 1 2 3 4 5 6
(a) Uncertainties in training data = 0.0% (frequencies) and 0.0% (mode shapes)
0.5 5.0 91.0 10.1 47.0 43.2 3.0 55.1
1.0 10.0 88.3 43.5 42.3 63.6 77.0 36.1
2.0 15.0 32.3 81.0 3.6 47.2 35.2 47.0
5 40 2.4 13.2 0.16 48.4 52.3 48.0

(b) Uncertainties in training data = 0.5% (frequencies) and 5.0% (mode shapes)
0 0 60.5 31.0 60.2 64.2 62.0 49.2
0.5 5.0 99.9 3.2 8.2 99.0 7.0 10.1
1.0 10.0 98.6 11.9 45.0 74.6 41.2 43.2
2.0 15.0 45.3 53.3 39.0 79.8 22.1 4.2
5 40 12.2 49.2 20.3 18.1 11.3 32.1

(c) Uncertainties in training data = 1.0% (frequencies) and 10.0% (mode shapes)
0 0 31.2 24.3 27.0 52.1 60.3 37.4
0.5 5.0 78.1 18.5 43.8 98.3 40.5 6.0
1.0 10.0 100.0 17.3 3.4 96.0 17.4 4.1
2.0 15.0 75.4 22.9 77.0 46.8 40.8 5.2
5 40 25.2 11.2 23.2 50.7 46.1 32.1

(d) Uncertainties in training data = 2.0% (frequencies) and 15.0% (mode shapes)
0 0 28.1 46.9 27.4 25.1 2.1 43.0
0.5 5.0 35.4 28.1 35.2 59.1 54.1 3.2
1.0 10.0 76.8 24.1 46.1 73.9 29.2 32.1
2.0 15.0 92.1 4.0 5.8 100 11.1 3.3
5 40 37.4 4.0 33.4 23.4 31.9 15.7

(a) Sensor location.

(b) Experimental setup.

Fig. 9. Experimental setup and sensor location.

5. Experimental example was 32 and the mass density was 2.55 × 103 kg/m3 . The slab
rested on wooden planks placed over three steel UB sections.
A two-span reinforced concrete slab with dimensions of Two point loads were applied to each span using hydraulic
6400 mm × 800 mm × 100 mm was tested. The concrete grade jacks as shown in Fig. 9(a) to induce damage. For the dynamic
 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815 2813

Fig. 10. Segment on the slab.

(a) Crack pattern at level 1.

(b) Crack pattern at level 2.

(c) Crack pattern at level 3.

Fig. 11. Crack patterns for different damage level.

test, a 5.4 kg impact hammer and nine sensors (accelerometers)
were used. The sensors were placed at 27 points on the slab.
Fig. 9(b) illustrates the sensor and impact locations. In this
study only the vertical bending mode shapes of the middle slab
are taken as the input of the ANN models. Three different load
levels were applied by the jacks to produce three damage states.
The load levels were (i) 18 kN at the left span (level 1); (ii)
18 kN each at both the left and right span (level 2); and (iii)
32 kN each at both the left and right span (level 3). At levels 2
and 3, the loads at left span were applied first, followed by at
the right span.
For the purpose of damage detection, the slab is divided
into seven segments, as shown in Fig. 10. The crack patterns
observed during the experiment for the three damage states are
shown in Fig. 11(a)–(c). At level 1, some cracks are clearly
seen at the middle of the left span, while no cracks observed
in another segment. When the load at level 2 was applied, the
cracks in the left span seemed to be more obvious, and a group
of small cracks appeared at the bottom of right span. There were
2814 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815
Fig. 12. ANN prediction without considering uncertainties.
Table 7
Frequencies of the slab at different load level
Undamaged Measurement
(Analytical)
Undamaged Level 1 Level 2
1st mode 18.222 17.810 16.910 15.707
2nd mode 28.576 25.458 24.109 22.275
also some cracks noticed at the top of the slab at the middle
support. At level 3, more cracks appeared in the left and right
span, while the existing cracks were getting more severe.
Vibration tests were performed before damage and after each
load increment. The tests were carried out without the loads
on the slab. DIAMOND software, which runs on MATLAB
platform, was used to post-process the data using peak-picking
method to obtain the natural frequencies and mode shapes.
Only the first two modes were clearly identified from the test.
The measured modal frequencies at different damage states are
given in Table 7. It is clearly seen that the frequencies reduced
at every load level.
5.1. Damage identification
First, damage identification is performed using ANN model
trained using deterministic data. Modal analysis using FEM are
conducted to generate training data. The RC slab is modelled
with shell elements with 189 nodes and 156 elements. The
supports are idealized as simply supported. The slab is divided
into seven segments and every element within the same segment
is assumed to have the same material properties. The material
properties used are: E = 3.3 × 1010 N/mm2 , ρ = 2.45 ×
103 kg/m3 , v = 0.2. The undamaged analytical frequencies for
the first two modes are also listed in Table 7.
For training, 2000 damage cases are used. Frequencies and
mode shapes for the first two modes and the E values for
every segment are used as the input and output respectively.
The best ANN model obtained has 82 hidden neurons. For
damage identification, the experimental data recorded at the
three damage levels are introduced to the trained ANN model.
Fig. 12 shows the ANN output for those three damage states.
The results show that the deterministic ANN model is unable to
Level 3 provide accurate predictions for those three damage states. For
11.878 all levels, the damages are incorrectly identified at segments 1
13.126 and 7, while underestimated at segment 5.
Second, using the procedure described earlier, the damage
identification is performed using the statistical ANN model
with the same ANN architecture as for the deterministic ANN.
By assuming that the noise levels of the measured modal data
and FE model are 2% (frequencies) and 15% (mode shapes),
the PDEs of the slab are obtained. Fig. 13 illustrated the PDEs
for those three damage levels. It is seen that the damages
identified using the proposed statistical method are closer to
the observed patterns than with the deterministic method. The
PDEs at level 1 show that the highest value is obtained at
segment 2 which is the observed damage location, while the
PDEs for the other segments are low. The result at damage level
2 shows that the damages at right span and at the middle support
are not identified. This may be due to the damage that occurred
in this span at this load level being insignificant. However,
at level 3 better agreement is obtained, and the damage in
both spans is identified with high confidence. Generally these
results demonstrate that the statistical approach provides more
reliable prediction of damage occurrence than the common
deterministic ANN model by taking into consideration the
uncertainties present in the real data when performing the
training.
6. Conclusion
This study presented a statistical ANN method that accounts
for the inevitable FE modelling error and measurement noise
for structural condition identification. Rosenblueth’s point esti-
mation method is used to derive the statistical ANN model and
to identify the structural condition. Both the modelling error
 N. Bakhary et al. / Engineering Structures 29 (2007) 2806–2815
Fig. 13. Probability of damages existence for slab using statistical ANN.
and measurement noise are assumed to have normal distribu-
tion and zero means. The accuracy of the statistical approach
was proved using Monte Carlo simulation. Using this method,
the probability of damage existence can be estimated. The nu-
merical and experimental results demonstrated that, compared
with the normal ANN approach, the statistical ANN approach
gives more reliable identification of structural damage.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the partial financial
support from the Australian Research Council and Main Roads
Western Australia under grant number LP0453783. Financial
support from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for the first
author to pursue a Ph.D. study in Australia is also gratefully
acknowledged.
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