Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering

ISSN: 1741-5977 (Print) 1741-5985 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/gipe20

Structural damage detection using improved

particle swarm optimization

Zitian Wei, Jike Liu & Zhongrong Lu

To cite this article: Zitian Wei, Jike Liu & Zhongrong Lu (2018) Structural damage detection
using improved particle swarm optimization, Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering,
26:6, 792-810, DOI: 10.1080/17415977.2017.1347168

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17415977.2017.1347168

Published online: 03 Jul 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1242

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 22 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gipe21
Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering, 2018
VOL. 26, NO. 6, 792–810
https://doi.org/10.1080/17415977.2017.1347168

Structural damage detection using improved particle swarm

optimization
Zitian Weia, Jike Liub and Zhongrong Lub
a
National Key Laboratory on Ship Vibration & Noise, China Ship Scientific Research Center, Wuxi, P.R. China;
b
Department of Applied Mechanics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, P.R. China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

An approach based on an improved particle swarm optimization Received 25 May 2016
(PSO) algorithm is proposed for structural damage detection in Accepted 20 June 2017
this study. A disturbance is introduced in the evolution process to KEYWORDS
avoid the occurrence of premature. The present algorithm focuses Damage detection; particle
on the mutation of global or individual best known positions to swarm optimization;
guide the swarm to escape from the local minimum. The feasibility disturbance; modal
and robustness of the modified PSO are verified by three different parameters; frequency
structures, including a beam, a truss and a plate. The results show domain
that the method is efficient and effective for structural damage
AMS SUBJECT
identification when measurement noise is considered.
CLASSIFICATION
93A30

1. Introduction
In the last few decades, techniques based on vibration response have been extensively
developed for structural damage identification and health monitoring. Local damages cause
changes in structural physical properties, mainly in stiffness and damping at damaged loca-
tions. These changes will result in the changes of structural dynamic characteristics, such
as natural frequencies and mode shapes, etc. There are abundant excellent literatures in the
field of vibration-based damage detection. Doebling et al. [1] presented a comprehensive
review of the damage detection methods by examining changes in the dynamic responses
of a structure. Housner et al. [2] provided a summary on the most-advanced techniques in
control and health monitoring in civil engineering structures. The progress on structural
condition monitoring and damage identification in the aspect of composite structures has
been reviewed by Zou et al. [3].
Plenty of achievements have been obtained on damage detection in both frequency
domain and time domain. Cawley and Adams [4], Narkis [5] localized structure damages
using measured natural frequencies. Pandey et al. [6] conducted damage identification by
observing the changes in curvature mode shapes. Besides, many researchers made excellent
studies on damage detection using vibration data in frequency domain [7–12]. Damage
detection methods in time domain have been developed rapidly in recent years. A non-­
destructive time domain approach to identify the local structural damage was proposed

CONTACT Zhongrong Lu [email protected]

This work was done in Sun Yat-sen University.
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  793

by Cattatius and Inman [13]. By observing the features of dynamic response sensitivity, Lu
and Law [14] proposed a response sensitivity-based method to identify structural damage.
This method can effectively identify both the locations and extents of damages through the
finite-element model updating. This approach was further developed to identify both local
damages and the input force and the crack parameters in beam structures [15,16]. Nilson
et al. [17] proposed a parameter-based mathematical morphology using vibration signal
data. Tao et al. [18] put forward a vibration-based detection for structural connections using
incomplete modal data by Bayesian approach and model reduction technique. Chang and
Kim [19] conducted a field experiment on an actual damaged steel truss bridge to identify
modal parameters and damages. Zhang et al. [20] presented a damage detection approach
for bridge structures under moving loads based on the phase trajectory change of multi-type
vibration measurements.
The usual model-based damage detection methods focus on minimizing an objective
function, which is expressed as the discrepancies between the vibration data obtained by
modal testing and those computed from the analytical data. Traditional optimization meth-
ods are usually gradient-based [21] and these gradient-based methods may lead to local
minima when the objective function is highly non-linear. An optimization technique with
strong searching ability is needed to obtain more reliable solution. In these years, artificial
swarm intelligence algorithms are quite popular in solving optimization problems including
damage detection due to their strong global searching abilities [22–29]. Genetic algorithm
(GA) as a classic global optimization method has been widely used for structural damage
detection [30–32]. Many improved and enhanced versions of GA have also been proposed
and meticulously studied. He and Hwang [33] put forward an adaptive real-parameter sim-
ulated annealing GA to identify damage in beam-type structures. A hybrid neural genetic
algorithm for damage assessment using data of structural static and dynamic behaviour
was adopted by Sahoo and Maity [34]. Kokot and Zenbaty [35] identified damage for 3-D
frames based on genetic algorithm and Levenberg-Marquardt local search.
Apart from GA, particle swarm optimization (PSO) [36–38] is a novel heuristic algorithm
and has been developed recently. PSO is a population-based global optimization technique
with many similarities with genetic algorithm. PSO has attracted great attentions in the past
few years because of its simplicity, universality and outstanding performance. It has been
applied into a large amount of real-world optimization problems [39–41]. Comparing to
GA or other optimization algorithms, PSO requires fewer number of function evaluations
and it is more simple and efficient [42–44]. The principal disadvantage of PSO is its high
possibility of premature convergence, similar to other algorithms. Hence, many improve-
ments on the original PSO have been studied by many researchers. Chen and Zhao [42]
developed a PSO with adaptive population size to enhance the overall performance of PSO.
Nickabadietal [43] presented a novel PSO with adaptive inertia weight. Sabatetal [44] made a
research on an integrated learning PSO to enhance the convergence and quality of solution.
Structural damage detection method based on PSO has been explored by some research-
ers. Kang et al. [45] proposed an immunity-enhanced PSO to obtain more accurate dam-
age identification results with a quicker convergence speed. Seyedpoor used a multi-stage
particle swarm optimization in structural damage detection [46]. He later applied PSO
in the second step of two-step method to identify the damage extents [47]. Nouri Shirazi
et al. utilized an adaptive multi-stage optimization method based on modified particle
swarm algorithm to identify structural damages [48]. Begambre and Laier [49] presented
794  Z. WEI ET AL.

a novel strategy for the control of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) parameters based
on the Nelder–Mead algorithm (Simplex method) to enhance the stability and confidence of
PSO. Sandesh and Shankar [50] found that a hybrid of particle swarm and genetic algorithm
for structural damage detection would be far superior than pure PSO and GA in convergence
and accuracy. Jena and Parhi [51] proposed a modified PSO to identify cracks of cantilever
beams. Kaveh and Maniat [52] applied Magnetic Charged System Search (MCSS) and PSO
to the problems of damage detection using frequencies and mode shapes of structures.
Gerist and Maheri [53] investigated multi-stage approach for structural damage detection
problem using basis pursuit and PSO.
In this paper, a disturbed PSO (DPSO) is proposed for structural damage identification,
in which a disturbance is introduced in the original PSO to avoid the whole swarm from
sinking into local optimization. Unlike the improved methods raised by some literatures
(say, [45]) focusing on the combinations of characteristics of PSO and some other optimiza-
tion algorithms, the DPSO pays attentions on the two key factors determining the motions
of each particle. It will help the whole swarm escape from the local minimum.

2. Methodology for vibration-based damage identification

2.1. Parameterization of local damage
Without loss of generality, the eigenvalue equation for a finite-element model of an intact
structure can be expressed

(𝐊 − 𝜔2j 𝐌)𝜙j = 0 (1)

where 𝐊 and 𝐌 are the structural stiffness matrix and mass matrix, respectively. ωj is the
jth natural frequency and ϕj is the corresponding mode shapes.
When a damage occurs in a structure, it will cause the loss in the local stiffness, but the
loss in mass is usually neglected. The damaged stiffness of a structure with nel elements
can be evaluated by a set of damage parameters di (i = 1, 2, …, nel) in the form of following
equation
nel
∑
𝐊𝐝 = (1 − di )𝐤𝐞𝐢 (2)
i=1

where 𝐊𝐝 is the stiffness matrix of the damaged system, and 𝐤𝐞𝐢 presents the ith elemental
stiffness matrix. The parameter di with value range between 0 and 1 refers to the damage
extent of the ith element. di = 0 indicates no damage while di = 1 represents the complete
damaged status. Therefore, detection of the local damages in a structure is equivalent to
quantify the values of the damage parameter vector {d}.

2.2. Objective function in frequency domain

It is known that the changes in structure properties will lead to changes in the dynamic
characteristics, such as natural frequencies and mode shapes. In the context of damage
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  795

detection, the task is to minimize the objective function using the discrepancies between
the measured data and the calculated ones.
Making use of the modal parameters including natural frequencies and modal assur-
ance criteria (MAC) in frequency domain, the objective function for damage detection is
defined as [27]
NF NM
∑ ∑
f = w𝜔j Δ𝜔2j + w𝜙j (1 − MACj ) (3)
j=1 j=1

where wωj and wϕj are weight factors corresponding to jth natural frequency and jth MAC,
respectively. NF and NM are the numbers of frequencies and mode shapes used in calcu-
lation, respectively.
The mathematical expression of the differences of natural frequencies in Equation (3)
is expressed as
| 𝜔 C − 𝜔M |
| j j |
Δ𝜔j = || |
| (4)
| 𝜔M j |
| |

j are the jth calculated and measured natural frequencies, respectively.

where 𝜔Cj and 𝜔M
And the expression of MAC in jth mode in Equation (3) is

({𝜙Cj }T {𝜙M
j })
2

MACj = (5)
‖ C ‖2 ‖ M ‖2
‖{𝜙j }‖ ‖{𝜙j }‖
‖ ‖‖ ‖

where 𝜙Cj and 𝜙Mj are the jth calculated and measured mode shapes respectively. Equation (5)
indicates that value of MAC is 1 when the calculated mode shape equals to the measured one.
It can be observed that Equation (3) is a function with respect to the damage index{d}.
Given a particular damage condition, if a set of damage index enables the objective function
to achieve the minimum (theoretically, it is zero), the damage index represents the true
structural damage status.

3. A brief introduction to PSO

PSO is inspired by a model of social interactions in a group of independent animals seeking
for food. An animal in PSO is called a particle. Each particle in PSO makes its motion with
a velocity influenced by its own movement experience and the one shared by its compan-
ions in the whole swarm of population N. Each particle is treated dimensionless in the
D-dimensional search space and denoted as 𝐱i = (xi1 , xi2 , … , xiD ). The lower and upper
bounds of the jth dimension is lj and uj.The previous best position of ith particle is taken
as 𝐩i = (pi1 , pi2 , … , piD ), while the best position in the whole swarm history is recorded as
𝐩g = (pg1 , pg2 , … , pgD ). The velocity for the motion of particle i is 𝐯i = (vi1 , vi2 , … , viD ). In
each generation t, ith particle is manipulated by the following equations according to Shi
and Eberhart [54]
𝐯i (t + 1) = w𝐯i (t) + r1 c1 (𝐩i (t) − 𝐱i (t)) + r2 c2 (𝐩g (t) − 𝐱i (t)) (6)
796  Z. WEI ET AL.

𝐱i (t + 1) = 𝐱i (t) + 𝐯i (t + 1) (7)
where c1 and c2 are two positive constants, while r1 and r2 are random number between 0
and 1, w is an inertia term, or a weighting factor.
It is suggested that a suitable selection of w will provide a balance between local and
global explorations. The most common selection of w is that it decreases from 0.9 to 0.4
with the expression below
wmax − wmin
w = wmax − ×t (8)
T
where wmax and wmin are initial and final weight, respectively, with T as the maximum
number of allowable generations. Meanwhile, a simple treatment is taken to boundary
conditions as
{
ld (xid < ld )
xid = (9)
ud (xid > ud )

where ld = 0 and ud = 0.99 is the lower bound value and upper bound value for the damage
extent, respectively. In the context of damage detection, ld = 0 means intact status of an
element, while ud = 0.99 means the totally destroyed of the element.

4. The improved PSO

As mentioned above, the disadvantage of the original PSO is its premature convergence,
especially for multimodal functions [55]. Unfortunately, the fitness function for damage
detection based on PSO is a complicated and multimodal. In this study, concentration is
paid on two decisive factors on each particle movement, namely, 𝐩g and 𝐩i in Equation (6).
After certain number of iterations, the result starts to converge, a check is required to
make on the possibility of premature convergence.
{
|f iter − f iter−M | < 𝜀
| | (when a ⋅ T < iter < b ⋅ T) (10)
f iter > 𝛿

where iter means the current iteration, a and b are two constants between 0 and 1 to deter-
mine the time of starting and ending of the disturbance. ε and δ are two small tolerances. If
Equation (10) is satisfied, it can be confirmed that premature convergence occurs. In such
case, a disturbance is introduced on either 𝐩g or 𝐩i. But when the disturbance is introduced
on 𝐩g and 𝐩i simultaneously, it will lead to wrong identified results as the disturbance is too
strong. When the disturbance is introduced on 𝐩g , it is denoted as DG, while on 𝐩i, denoted
as DI. The disturbance equations are given below
�
DG: pg,d = pg,d + c3 r3 (d = 1, 2, … D) (11)

or
�
DI: pi,j,d = pi,j,d + c3 r3 (d = 1, 2, ..., D; j = 1, 2, … , N) (12)
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  797

c3 is the magnitude of disturbance, r3 is a random number in the range [−1, 1]. The super-
script ′ denotes the disturbed value of current iteration step. Particles in swarms obtain
their motions by following the disturbed 𝐩g or 𝐩i. It is worthy mentioned that during the
disturbance the dimensional value is allowed to exceed the boundary. The effect of distur-
bance from Equations (11) or (12) on the convergence is almost the same, which will be
illustrated in the numerical simulations.
The steps for damage identification based on DPSO are listed as follows.
Step 1: Initialize the population (generate a random population of N solutions) in the
search space.
Step 2: For each particle i ∊ N, calculate its fitness value by Equation (3) using Equations
(1) and (2).
Step 3: Update the best position of individual i, updating the best position of whole
swarm.
Step 4: If Equation (10) is satisfied, conduct disturbance according to Equation (11) or
Equation (12).
Step 5: Evolve each particle according to Equations (6) and (7).
Step 6: Treat the boundary using Equation (9).
Step 7: Repeat Steps 2–6 until the maximum number of iteration is reached.

5. Numerical simulation
5.1. Parameters setting for DPSO
The parameter w in Equation (8) is set to decrease linearly from 0.9 to 0.4 according to
Shi [54]. c1 and c2 are both set to be 2.0 in Equation (6). The population N is taken as 100.
wωj and wϕj in Equation (3) are both set to be 1. The other parameters for DPSO are listed
in Table 1. Original PSO and GA are introduced as comparison algorithms. Ten runs are
performed for each algorithm in the following damage cases. These 4 algorithms share the
same max iteration number in each run, which are 200 for the beam (same as reference
literature [45]) and 500 for the truss and plate.
To simulate measurement noise, the natural frequencies are contaminated with 1% noise
and 10% noise is added to the modal displacement for all the cases with noise. The math-
ematic expressions of added noise are listed below
( )
𝜔j = 𝜔j 1 + 𝛾j𝜔 ⋅ 𝜌𝜔 (13)

( )
| |
𝜙̄ ij = 𝜙ij 1 + 𝛾ijΦ 𝜌Φ |Φj | (14)
| |max
where the overbars mean noise-polluted data. γω and 𝛾ijΦ are uniformly distributed random
number between −1 and 1. ρω, ρΦ are the levels of the random noise. The subscripts ‘ij’ of 𝜙̄ ij

Table 1. Parameter values for DPSO.

Structure M a b ε δ c3
Beam 15 0.3 0.5 10−4 10−6 0.1
Truss
Plate 15 0.1 0.9 10−4 10−6 0.1
798  Z. WEI ET AL.

Figure 1. A simply supported beam and its cross section.

| |
and ϕij are the mode shape components of the jth mode at ith degree of freedom. |Φj |
| |max
is the largest absolute value of component in the jth mode shape.

5.2. A simply supported beam

A simply supported beam studied by Kang et al. [45] is used as an example. The geometry
of the beam is shown in Figure 1. The total number of elements and nodes are 20 and 21,
respectively. Properties of the material are Young’s modulus E = 70 GPa, mass density
𝜌 = 2.70 × 103 kg/m3 and Poisson ratio μ = 0.33. Two damage cases in [45] are studied
and the first three natural frequencies and modes shapes are utilized in these two cases for
comparison.

5.2.1. Damage case 1

This case presents multiple severe damage cases with the assumption that element 1 and
element 9 has 50 and 87.5% reduction in elemental stiffness, respectively.
Original PSO and GA (GA function in MATLAB® is utilized here) are employed here as
comparison to illustrate the effectiveness, efficiency and accuracy of proposed algorithms
either without noise or with identical noise. Damage detection results are shown in Figure 2.
The colourized bars represent the averaged results of 10 runs for each algorithm, while the
vertical segment line at each bar shows the maximum and minimum in 10 runs, respec-
tively. Grey bars are true values. It can be observed that no algorithm suffers premature
convergence in noise-free condition. The results from both original and improved PSO
methods are more accurate and less time-consuming than GA, which has multiple small
false alarms. Figure 3 shows that when frequencies and mode shapes data are polluted by
noise, DG-PSO and DI-PSO still obtain quite desirable identification results in each run.
Damage extents are identified with wrong results in some runs when the original PSO is
used, it maybe duo to premature convergence. GA gives similar performance compared
with that in noise-free condition. The identified results of damaged elements are listed in
Table 2. The evolutionary processes of fitness values of these four algorithms are illustrated
in logarithmic form in Figure 4. It can be observed that in the respect of optimization
problems of damage detection, in absence of premature convergence, PSO-based methods
are superior to GA in convergence precision.

5.2.2. Damage case 2

In this case it is assumed that element 2 and element 9 have both 10% reduction in stiffness
meanwhile element 16 has 15%, i.e. d2 = 0.1, d9 = 0.1 and d16 = 0.15. We consider both the
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  799

1
GA true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1
PSO true value
0.5
damage index

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1
DG true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1
DI true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
element number

Figure 2. Damage detection results of beam case 1 without noise.

1
GA true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1
PSO true value
0.5
damage index

0
1 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
DG true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1
DI true value
0.5

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
element number

Figure 3. Damage detection results of beam case 1 with noise.

conditions with and without noise. In this case, the number of damages increases while the
damage extents decrease compared with case 1.
(1) Comparison with original PSO and GA
Damage detection results in noise-free condition are shown in Figure 5. In noise-free
conditions, the identified results from both improved methods converge to the true value
800  Z. WEI ET AL.

2
10
GA
PSO
0
10 DG-PSO
DI-PSO
-2
10
fitness

-4
10

-6
10

-8
10

-10
10
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
generations(iterations)

Figure 4. Evolutionary processes of fitness values of beam case 1 without noise.

Table 2. Identified values of damaged elements and relative errors of different structures with noise.
Case Element number GA PSO DG DI
Beam case 1 1 0.513 (2.6%)* 0.384 (23.1%) 0.489 (2.1%) 0.489 (2.0%)
9 0.871 (0.4%) 0.878 (0.4%) 0.873 (0.3%) 0.873 (0.3%)
Beam case 2 2 0.0800 (2.2%) 0.0187 (9.0%) 0.115 (1.7%) 0.113 (1.5%)
9 0.0675 (3.6%) 0.137 (4.1%) 0.144 (4.9%) 0.142 (4.6%)
16 0.091 (6.6%) 0.115 (3.9%) 0.184 (3.7%) 0.181 (3.4%)
Truss 2 0.288 (1.7%) 0.109 (27.2%) 0.296 (0.6%) 0.297 (0.3%)
10 0.320 (13.4%) 0.173 (37.8%) 0.401 (0.2%) 0.402 (0.3%)
17 0.144 (7.0%) 0.0716 (16.0%) 0.180 (2.4%) 0.179 (2.7%)
18 0.244 (0.8%) 0.0902 (21.3%) 0.240 (1.3%) 0.233 (2.2%)
23 0.369 (2.9%) 0.276 (11.4%) 0.373 (3.6%) 0.369 (3.0%)
28 0.209 (2.8%) 0.201 (3.8%) 0.230 (0.05%) 0.234 (0.5%)
*a (b%) denotes identified result (relative error).

accurately in each run and all 10 runs. However, GA and original PSO cannot perform so
well. GA locates damages with severe false alarms in each run which leads to poor perfor-
mance. The performance for PSO is not robust, i.e. it can identify the damages correctly in
some runs, while it cannot in some runs due to premature convergence.
In noise-contaminated condition, Figure 6 and Table 2 show the damage detection result
from different methods. The identified results from DG-PSO and DI PSO are more close
to true values with less and smaller false alarms than those from GA and PSO in the same
noise-polluted condition. What’s more, these two improved PSO methods perform more
steadily in each run than GA and PSO, which can be observed from the lengths of vertical
segments of each element in Figure 6.
It can be found out that in this case, the probability of premature convergence rises com-
pared with case 1. It probably is caused by the dramatically reduction on damage severity
and increase on the number of damaged elements, which enhances identification difficulty.
Figures 5 and 6 demonstrate the effectiveness of damage identification using proposed
methods which enhance the ability of preventing premature convergence.
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  801

0.2
GA true value
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
PSO true value
0.1
damage index

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
DG true value
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
DI true value
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
element number

Figure 5. Damage detection results of beam case 2 without noise.

0.2
GA truevalue
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
PSO truevalue
damage index

0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
DG truevalue
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.2
DI truevalue
0.1

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
element number

Figure 6. Damage detection results of beam case 2 with noise.

(2) Analysis of DG-PSO and DI-PSO

The characteristics of DG-PSO and DI-PSO should be analysed here with the noise-free
condition taken as example. One run is selected as representative to show the evolutionary
processes from these two algorithms of damaged elements, i.e. element 2, element 9 and
element 16, which are illustrated in Figure 7. It can be observed that, on one hand, distur-
bance helps elements 9 and 16 in DG, which are stuck in the wrong values due to premature
convergence before, to escape from local minima and re-find the right values. On the other
802  Z. WEI ET AL.

1
element 2 (DG)

damage index
element 9 (DG)
0.5 element 16 (DG)

20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

iterations
(a)

1
element 2 (DI)
damage index

element 9 (DI)
0.5 element 16 (DI)

20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

iterations
(b)

Figure 7. Evolutionary processes of damaged elements of beam case 2 without noise.

DG
10 0
DI

-2
10
Fitness value

10 -4

10 -6

-8
10

10 -10
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
iterations

Figure 8. Evolutionary processes of fitness values of beam case 2 without noise.

hand, element 2, which has found the right value before disturbance, is not affected by the
subsequent disturbance.
Similarity can be found in DI. Element 2 and element 16 in DI fail to locate the true
values before the first 60 steps. However, disturbance leads the elements to find true values
in subsequent iterations. Element 9, like element 2 in DG, is not influenced by the distur-
bance. Figure 7 indicates that the final result will return to the true value regardless of either
disturbance method, if the right value has been already found before disturbance.
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  803

Figure 9. A 31-bar truss structure.

0.5
GA true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
PSO true value
damage index

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
DG true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
DI true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
element number

Figure 10. Damage identification of the truss without noise.

The evolutionary processes of logarithmic best fitness values of both DG and DI are
illustrated in Figure 8. As best fitness value is obtained from Pg at each iteration, two small
peaks in DG line denote the occurrence of disturbances. The final converged best fitness
values of both DG and DI are smaller than 10−7, which shows the robustness of proposed
methods. It can also be observed from Figures 2–8 that DG-PSO and DI-PSO share the
equivalent ability of leading the whole population to re-find the global optimization value
in case of prematurity.

5.3. A truss structure

A 31-bar truss shown in Figure 9 is studied. The length of each exterior bar is 1 m, and
length of interior bar is 1.41 m. The section area of each bar is A = 0.004 m2. Properties
of the material are Young’s modulus E = 200 GPa, and mass density 𝜌 = 7800 kg/m3. The
total number of elements and nodes is 31 and 14, respectively. First five frequencies and
804  Z. WEI ET AL.

0.5
GA true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
PSO true value
damage index

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
DG true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
0.5
DI true value

0
5 10 15 20 25 30
element number

Figure 11. Damage identification of the truss case with noise.

0.8
element 2 (DG)
0.7 element 10 (DG)
element 17 (DG)
0.6 element 18 (DG)
element 23 (DG)
0.5 element 28 (DG)
damage index

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

-0.1
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
iterations

Figure 12. Evolutionary processes of DG-PSO without noise.

mode shapes are utilized in this case. Six local damages are assumed to locate at the 2nd,
10th, 17th, 18th, 23rd and 28th elements, with a reduction in each stiffness of 30, 40, 20,
25 35 and 23%, respectively.
In this case, the finite-element number, i.e. the dimension of each particle increases
compared with the beam above as well as the number of damaged elements.
(1) Comparisons with GA and PSO
Comparisons with GA and PSO are performed again to illustrate the effectiveness
and superiority of proposed methods. Figure 10 shows the damage detection results
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  805

0.8
element 2 (DI)
0.7 element 10 (DI)
element 17 (DI)
0.6 element 18 (DI)
element 23 (DI)
0.5 element 28 (DI)
damage index

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

iterations

Figure 13. Evolutionary process of DI-PSO without noise.

10 5
DG
DI
10 0

10 -5
fitness value

10 -10

-15
10

-20
10
0 100 200 300 400 500
iterations

Figure 14. Evolutionary processes of fitness values from DG-PSO and DI-PSO.

in the condition without noise. It’s not difficult to find out that both GA and PSO fail
to identify the damages accurately. Fortunately, due to disturbance processes, accu-
rate identification results are obtained from both DG-PSO and DI-PSO without any
false alarm in each run. The identification results in the noise-contaminated condition
are illustrated in Figure 11. There are still several misidentifications in GA and PSO.
DG-PSO and DI-PSO give global optimization results without any exception, whose
identified results are detailed in Table 2. Figures 10 and 11 illustrate that when the
optimization problems become more complicated, GA and PSO methods are more
likely to suffer premature convergence.
806  Z. WEI ET AL.

Figure 15. Sketch of a four-edge simply supported plate ((1), (2), …, (63) denote node number of the
FEM; 1, 2, … , 48 denote element number) (Dimensions not scaled).

(2) Analysis of DG-PSO and DI-PSO

One run out of 10 is selected as representative to illustrate the evolutionary processes of
damaged elements using both DG-PSO and DI-PSO, which can be viewed in Figures 12
and 13. It is obvious that element 2, 17, 28 in DG, as well as element 10, 17, 28 in DI suffer
from prematurity before disturbances, which help these elements to return to the true values
subsequently. The curve of fitness values from both algorithms are illustrated in Figure 14.
Again, Figures 12–14 provide the evidences of effectiveness, efficiency and robustness of
two proposed methods. Both disturbance methods share the equivalent performances of
escaping from premature values and re-identify the true values correctly.

5.4. A four-edge simply supported plate

Figure 15 demonstrates a thin plate with four edges simply supported as a simulation study
case with its dimension of 3 m 4 m 0.1 m. The physical material properties of the plate are:
Young’s modulus E = 210 GPa, mass density 𝜌 = 7850 kg/m3 and Poisson’s ratio υ = 0.3.
In the finite element, the plate was discretized into 6 × 8 4-node Kirchhoff plate elements.
Seven local damages are assumed to locate at the 1st, 12th, 19th, 24th, 27th, 38th and 45th
elements, with a reduction in each stiffness of 15, 30, 16, 23, 30, 15 and 28%, respectively.
The first 10 frequencies and mode shapes are used in the identification. As DI and DG
share the equivalent ability in achieving damage detection results, DI is performed only as
representative to illustrate the identified damage index.
In noise-free condition, damage index converges to right value correctly in each run.
The average result of damage detection of 10 runs in noise-polluted condition is shown in
Figure 16. The slenderer bars represent true values, while the arrow tests are the relative
errors. Figure 17 illustrates the process of evolution of damaged indices of one run in noise
condition, which indicates that sufficient numbers of disturbances are quite necessary for
structure with comparatively large numbers of finite elements. This case proves that the
DPSO can be applied in comparatively complicated structures.
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  807

4.0%

0.4
0.7%

0.3
damage index
2.5%
1.3%
3.2%
0.2 -1.1%

0.1 0.5%

1
2 6
3 5
4
5 4
y 6
7
3 x
2
8 1

Figure 16. Damage detection results of DPSO in plate.

1 element 1
element 12
Damage index

element 19
0.5 element 24

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Iterations

1 element 27
Damage Index

element 38
element 45
0.5

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Iterations

Figure 17. Evolutionary process of damage indices in plate case.

808  Z. WEI ET AL.

6. Conclusions
Damage detection approach based on an improved PSO using vibration data is proposed.
A disturbance process is introduced when the premature convergence appears in the early
generations of calculation. Disturbance helps particles escape from local minimum. And
three different structures are studied to illustrate the robustness, effectiveness and efficiency
of the proposed method. The proposed disturbed PSO can be utilized in different fields of
optimization.

Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11572356), Guangdong
Province Natural Science Foundation (2015A030313126) and the Guangdong Province Science
and Technology Program (2016A020223006, 2016B090918038). Such financial aids are gratefully
acknowledged.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number
11572356]; Guangdong Province Natural Science Foundation [grant number 2015A030313126];
and the Guangdong Province Science and Technology Program [grant number 2016A020223006],
[grant number 2016B090918038].

References
[1] Doebling SW, Farrar CR, Prime MB. A summary review of vibration-based damage identification
methods. Shock Vib Digest. 1998;30(2):91–105.
[2] Housner GW, Bergman LA, Caughey T, et al. Structural control: past, present, and future. J Eng
Mech. 1997;123(9):897–971.
[3] Zou Y, Tong L, Steven G. Vibration-based model-dependent damage (delamination) identification
and health monitoring for composite structures – a review. J Sound Vib. 2000;230(2):357–378.
[4] Cawley P, Adams R. The location of defects in structures from measurements of natural
frequencies. J Strain Anal Eng. 1979;14(2):49–57.
[5] Narkis Y. Identification of crack location in vibrating simply supported beams. J Sound Vib.
1994;172(4):549–558.
[6] Pandey A, Biswas M, Samman M. Damage detection from changes in curvature mode shapes.
J Sound Vib. 1991;145(2):321–332.
[7] Rizos P, Aspragathos N, Dimarogonas A. Identification of crack location and magnitude in a
cantilever beam from the vibration modes. J Sound Vib. 1990;138(3):381–388.
[8] Ratcliffe CP. Damage detection using a modified Laplacian operator on mode shape data. J
Sound Vib. 1997;204(3):505–517.
[9] Wu D, Law S. Model error correction from truncated modal flexibility sensitivity and generic
parameters: Part I – simulation. Mech Syst Signal Pr. 2004;18(6):1381–1399.
[10] Chatterjee A. Structural damage assessment in a cantilever beam with a breathing crack using
higher order frequency response functions. J Sound Vib. 2010;329(16):3325–3334.
[11] Lim TW. Structural damage detection using modal test data. AIAAJ. 1991;29(12):2271–2274.
 INVERSE PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING  809

[12] Shi ZY, Law SS, Zhang LM. Structural damage localization from modal strain energy change.
J Sound Vib. 1998;218(5):825–844.
[13] Cattarius J, Inman D. Time domain analysis for damage detection in smart structures. Mech
Syst Signal Pr. 1997;11(3):409–423.
[14] Lu ZR, Law SS. Features of dynamic response sensitivity and its application in damage detection.
J Sound Vib. 2007;303(1–2):305–329.
[15] He ZY, Lu ZR. Time domain identification of multiple cracks in a beam. Struct Eng Mech.
2010;35(6):773–789.
[16] Lu XB, Liu JK, Lu ZR. A two-step approach for crack identification in beam. J Sound Vib.
2013;332(2):282–293.
[17] Barbieri N, Barbieri R, Silva HAT. A methodology for identification of damage in beams. Inverse
Pro Sci Eng. 2016;24(3):482–503.
[18] Yin T, Jiang QH, Yuen KV. Vibration-based damage detection for structural connections using
incomplete modal data by Bayesian approach and model reduction technique. Eng Struct.
2017;132:260–277.
[19] Chang KC, Kim CW. Modal-parameter identification and vibration-based damage detection
of a damaged steel truss bridge. Eng Struct. 2016;122:156–173.
[20] Zhang WW, Li J, Hao H, et al. Damage detection in bridge structures under moving loads
with phase trajectory change of multi-type vibration measurements. Mech Syst Signal Pr.
2017;87:410–425.
[21] Hao H, Xia Y. Vibration-based damage detection of structures by genetic algorithm. J Comput
Civil Eng. 2002;16(3):222–229.
[22] Kang F, Li J. Artificial bee colony algorithm optimized support vector regression for system
reliability analysis of slopes. J Comput Civil Eng. 2015;30(3):04015040.
[23] Kang F, Xu Q, Li J. Slope reliability analysis using surrogate models via new support vector
machines with swarm intelligence. Appl Math Model. 2016;40(11–12):6105–6120.
[24] Kang F, Li JS, Li JJ. System reliability analysis of slopes using least squares support vector
machines with particle swarm optimization. Neurocomputing. 2016;209:46–56.
[25] Xu HJ, Ding ZH, Lu ZR, et al. Structural damage detection based on chaotic artificial bee colony
algorithm. Struct Eng Mech. 2015;55(6):1223–1239.
[26] Li S, Lu ZR. Multi-swarm fruit fly optimization algorithm for structural damage identification.
Struct Eng Mech. 2015;56(3):409–422.
[27] Ding ZH, Huang M, Lu ZR. Structural damage detection using artificial bee colony algorithm
with hybrid search strategy. Swarm Evolution Comput. 2016;28:1–13.
[28] Xu HJ, Liu JK, Lu ZR. Structural damage identification based on cuckoo search algorithm. Adv
Struct Eng. 2016;19(5):849–859.
[29] Ding ZH, Lu ZR, Liu JK. Improved Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for crack identification in
beam using natural frequencies only. Inverse Probl Sci Eng. 2017;25(2):218–238.
[30] Vakil-Baghmisheh M-T, Peimani M, Sadeghi MH, et al. Crack detection in beam-like structures
using genetic algorithms. Appl Soft Comput. 2008;8(2):1150–1160.
[31] Chou JH, Ghaboussi J. Genetic algorithm in structural damage detection. Comput Struct.
2001;79(14):1335–1353.
[32] Buezas FS, Rosales MB, Filipich CP. Damage detection with genetic algorithms taking into
account a crack contact model. Eng Fract Mech. 2011;78(4):695–712.
[33] He RS, Hwang SF. Damage detection by an adaptive real-parameter simulated annealing genetic
algorithm. Comput Struct. 2006;84(31):2231–2243.
[34] Sahoo B, Maity D. Damage assessment of structures using hybrid neuro-genetic algorithm.
Appl Soft Comput. 2007;7(1):89–104.
[35] Kokot S, Zembaty Z. Damage reconstruction of 3D frames using genetic algorithms with
Levenberg–Marquardt local search. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng. 2009;29(2):311–323.
[36] Kennedy J, Eberhart RC. Particle swarm optimization. Proceedings of IEEE international
conference on neural networks. Perth; 1995.
[37] Eberhart RC, Kennedy J. A new optimizer using particle swarm theory. Proceedings of the
sixth international symposium on micro machine and human science. New York, NY; 1995.
810  Z. WEI ET AL.

[38] Poli R, Kennedy J, Blackwell T. Particle swarm optimization. Swarm Intell-US. 2007;1(1):33–57.

[39] Kalyani S, Swarup KS. Classifier design for static security assessment using particle swarm
optimization. Appl Soft Comput. 2011;11(1):658–666.
[40] Kuo RJ, Chao CM, Chiu Y. Application of particle swarm optimization to association rule
mining. Appl Soft Comput. 2011;11(1):326–336.
[41] Ganguly S, Sahoo N, Das D. Mono-and multi-objective planning of electrical distribution
networks using particle swarm optimization. Appl Soft Comput. 2011;11(2):2391–2405.
[42] Chen D, Zhao CX. Particle swarm optimization with adaptive population size and its application.
Appl Soft Comput. 2009;9(1):39–48.
[43] Nickabadi A, Ebadzadeh MM, Safabakhsh R. A novel particle swarm optimization algorithm
with adaptive inertia weight. Appl Soft Comput. 2011;11(4):3658–3670.
[44] Sabat SL, Ali L, Udgata SK. Integrated learning particle swarm optimizer for global optimization.
Appl Soft Comput. 2011;11(1):574–584.
[45] Kang F, Li J-j, Xu Q. Damage detection based on improved particle swarm optimization using
vibration data. Appl Soft Comput. 2012;12(8):2329–2335.
[46] Seyedpoor SM. Structural damage detection using a multi-stage particle swarm optimization.
Adv Struct Eng. 2011;14(3):541–557.
[47] Seyedpoor SM. A two stage method for structural damage detection using a modal strain energy
based index and particle swarm optimization. Int J Nonlin Mech. 2012;47(1):1–8.
[48] Nouri Shirazi MR, Mollamahmoudi H, Seyedpoor SM. Structural damage identification using
an adaptive multi-stage optimization method based on a modified particle swarm algorithm. J
Optimiz Theory App. 2014;160(3):1009–1019.
[49] Begambre O, Laier JE. A hybrid particle swarm optimization–simplex algorithm (PSOS) for
structural damage identification. AdvEngSoftw. 2009;40(9):883–891.
[50] Sandesh S, Shankar K. Application of a hybrid of particle swarm and genetic algorithm for
structural damage detection. Inverse Pro Sci Eng. 2010;18(7):997–1021.
[51] Jena PK, Parhi DR. A modified particle swarm optimization technique for crack detection in
cantilever beams. Arabian J Sci Eng. 2015;11:1–10.
[52] Kaveh A, Maniat M. Damage detection based on MCSS and PSO using modal data. Smart
Struct Syst. 2015;15(5):1253–1270.
[53] Gerist S, Maheri MR. Multi-stage approach for structural damage detection problem using basis
pursuit and particle swarm optimization. J Sound Vib. 2016;384:210–226.
[54] Shi YH, Eberhart R. A modified particle swarm optimizer. Proceedings of Evolutionary
Computation Proceedings, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence. Anchorage
(AK): IEEE; 1998. p. 69–73.
[55] Seo J-H, Im C-H, Heo C-G, et al. Multimodal function optimization based on particle swarm
optimization. IEEE T Mag. 2006;42(4):1095–1098.