Prediction of Unmeasured Mode Shape Using Artificial Neural Network for Damage Detection

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have received much attention in the field of vibration–based damage detection since the 1990s, due to their capability to predict damage from modal data. However, the accuracy of this method is highly dependent on the number of measurement points, especially when the mode shape is used as an indicator for damage detection. With a high number of measurement points, more information can be fed to the ANN to detect damage; therefore, more reliable results can be obtained. Nevertheless, in practice, it is uneconomical to install sensors on every part of a structure; thus the capability of ANNs to detect damage is quite limited. In this study, an ANN is applied to predict the unmeasured mode shape data based on a limited number of measured data. To demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method, the results are compared with the Cubic Spline interpolation (CS) method. A parametric study is also conducted to investigate the sensitivity of the number of measurement points to the proposed method. The results show that the ANN provides more reliable results compared to the CS method as it is able to predict the magnitude of mode shapes at the unmeasured points with a limited number of measurement points. The application of a two–stage ANN showed results with a high potential for overcoming the issue of using a limited number of sensors in structural health monitoring.