In recent years, numerous approaches have been proposed for detecting damage in structures, in which the flexibility-based Damage Locating Vector (DLV) method is one of the promising techniques. By computing a set of load vectors from the change of the flexibility matrix before and after damage and then applying them as static forces to analytical model for static computation, the DLV method is able to locate damage in structures. The main purpose of this paper is to experimentally verify this method. Following a brief overview of the DLV method and construction of the flexibility matrix from experimental data, the experimental setup is described. The test structure is a 15 ft long three-dimensional truss structure. To simulate damage in the structure, the original truss member is replaced by one with reduced stiffness. Results show that the DLV method can successfully detect the damage using limited number of sensors and truncated modes.
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