Original Article

Structural Health Monitoring

2014, Vol. 13(3) 233250

Damage-sensitive features from The Author(s) 2014

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non-linear vibration response of DOI: 10.1177/1475921713520028
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reinforced concrete structures

Voggu Srinivas, Saptarshi Sasmal and Karusala Ramanjaneyulu

Abstract
Reinforced concrete structures respond in non-linear manner under dynamic loads even at low levels of vibration. This
causes softening in concrete which may result in the unstable vibration. By considering the non-linearity, the effects of
amplitude of vibration on the modal characteristics can be used to extract damage-sensitive features. In this article,
investigations carried out on the phenomena associated with non-linear vibration, which were observed during the
vibration tests on damaged reinforced concrete structures, are discussed. For effectively identifying the non-linear dam-
age features in reinforced concrete structures from the frequency spectral information, an appropriate vibration testing
procedure is formulated in this study. Damage features are evaluated from the changes in vibration amplitude with fre-
quency at different damage levels under various types of excitations and their force levels. Damage indicators based on
basic signal statistics and non-linearity in vibration responses are evaluated. Using the phase-plane information obtained
from various damage scenarios, non-linear damage indices have been formulated. Another significant non-linear damage
feature has been identified by the occurrence of higher harmonics observed by analysing the spectral density functions
obtained from the frequency domain decomposition. The results obtained from this study would pave the way for identi-
fying the damage in heterogeneous and non-linear structures such as reinforced concrete.

Keywords
Vibration testing, experimental modal analysis, reinforced concrete, non-linear vibration, damage features, transfer func-
tion, phase plane

Introduction modal parameters. When RC structures contain wide

The identification of the non-linear system parameters
and extraction of damage-sensitive features are becom-
ing the main focus of structural health monitoring in
recent years. Typically, the structural behaviour under
initial damaged condition is predominantly linear in
nature, but it exhibits non-linear response when sub-
jected to operating loading conditions. The damage
may be in the form of cracks that will open and close
under operating loads. The process of damage identifi-
cation can significantly be enhanced by considering
these non-linear effects while extracting damage-
sensitive features from the measured vibration
responses. The assessment of damage in reinforced con-
crete (RC) structures is important because they often
experience different types of deterioration in addition
to pre-existing micro-cracks. Use of vibration testing as
a global damage assessment method is becoming very
popular because of its unique capability to extract
cracks, it will cause softening in the global behaviour.
Furthermore, by applying dynamic loads to the RC
structures, they will respond in a non-linear fashion
even at small levels of vibration which results in the
excessive vibration of the structures. Because of this
non-linear behaviour of RC structures, some important
information will be lost if the linear assumption is
made. By considering the non-linearity, the effects of
amplitude of vibration on the vibration characteristics
can be used to identify the features which are sensitive
RCS-Bridge Engineering Group, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research
Centre, Chennai, India
Corresponding author:
Voggu Srinivas, RCS-Bridge Engineering Group, CSIR-Structural
Engineering Research Centre, CSIR Campus, Taramani, Chennai 600013,
India.
Email: srinivas@serc.res.in; voggu.srinivas@gmail.com
234
to the damage. Also, by formulating an efficient experi-
mental procedure, it may be possible to identify the
structural damage using the non-linearities in vibration
characteristics which will eliminate the need for a base-
line measurement. Even though large amount of
research works are carried out on developing methods
for detecting damage assuming linear behaviour under
dynamic loading, there has been a very scanty research
dealing with RC structures, and furthermore, rare
interest is found to explore the feasibility of using the
vibration non-linearities to assess the condition of
structures.
The most common damage-sensitive features that
have been reported in the literature that represents a
data condensation from the actual measured quantities
are resonant frequencies, mode shapes and their deriva-
tives, and spectral density functions. The identification
of these features was carried out by commonly using a
physics-based lumped-parameter modal model, to mea-
sure vibrational response time histories, acceleration or
spectra of these time histories. Many experimental
modal analysis procedures were applied to the mea-
sured response time histories or spectra to estimate the
systems modal properties.13 The analysis procedure
includes the data from the structure at initial stage and
assumed undamaged condition and then is repeated at
periodic intervals or after some potentially damaging
event that triggers the assessment process. Changes in
the modal parameters were also used to indicate the
presence and location of damage in either a forward or
inverse manner.4
Another class of damage identification methods is
based on features related to changes in mass, stiffness
and damping matrix indices associated with physical
models that have been correlated so that the model pre-
dicts, as closely as possible, experimentally determined
modal properties. These methods solve for the updated
matrices (or perturbations to the nominal model that
produce the updated matrices) by forming a con-
strained optimisation problem based on the structural
equations of motion, the nominal model and the identi-
fied modal properties.5,6 Comparisons of the matrix
indices that have been correlated with modal properties
identified from the damaged structure to the original
correlated matrix indices can provide an indication of
the existence, location and extent of damage.
From the literature, it was observed that the linear
type of structural damage is considered in many of the
research works, such as a local reduction in stiffness, a
non-closing notch or a change in geometry like removal
of a member in a truss structure. In the real sense, struc-
tural damage is often non-linear, such as a fatigue crack
that opens and closes. In the last few years, a lot of
research has been done on linear dynamic damage
Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)
indicators.710 Only limited works have been reported
making use of the non-linearities for damage detec-
tion.1115
Most of the research works reported in the literature
on the use of non-linear vibration-based damage detec-
tion have focussed on fatigue cracks in metals which
include methods of inspecting the response spectrum
for the presence of superharmonics1619 and using the
auto-bispectrum20 to detect damage. Published works
on the non-linear amplitude-dependent modal proper-
ties of concrete beams are extremely scanty.2123 Eccles
et al.24 conducted impact excitation tests on several
beams. They observed that in the case of higher ampli-
tude of vibration, the frequency obtained is less than
that observed for the lower amplitude of vibration. For
higher levels of damage, the gradient of the frequency
versus time curve was found to be larger. However, the
beams tested had a fundamental frequency far higher
than would be expected for a bridge, and the excitation
decayed extremely quickly. These findings have been
supported by small-scale beam tests conducted by
Goldsmith.25 It was found that although there was
some amplitude dependence for the undamaged beam,
this seems to be increased when the beam was damaged
up to the point where the reinforcing bars started to
yield. After yielding of steel, the strength of the increase
in the amplitude dependence reduced and only a reduc-
tion in the frequency was noted. Van Den Abeele and
De Visscher26 used continuous-wave excitation at vari-
ous amplitudes to obtain the natural frequencies at dif-
ferent amplitudes of oscillation. It was observed that
although the beam did not behave linearly when unda-
maged, once the beam was damaged using four-point
loading, the non-linearities became far more
pronounced.
In this article, studies carried out on the RC beam
responses (deflection and acceleration transfer func-
tions) to evaluate the transient and stationary proper-
ties of cracked structures under dynamic loads are
discussed. Some phenomena associated with non-linear
vibration are observed during the experimental investi-
gations and numerical studies. Hence, to effectively
assess the damage in RC structures, linear and non-
linear damage indices have been evaluated from the fre-
quency spectral information. For this purpose, a suit-
able experimental procedure is formulated to obtain
the damage information from the changes in amplitude
with frequency and other modal characteristics of an
RC beam under different damage scenarios. Damping
ratios are evaluated on the RC beam to find out the
change in damping values in different damage condi-
tions. Impulse excitations were used to study its effect
at increasing levels of damage. Using the acceleration
data, timefrequency and amplitudefrequency
Srinivas et al.
relationships were evaluated to identify the damage-
sensitive features from non-linearity in vibration
responses. Damage features are also evaluated using phase
plane and superharmonics from the transformation of
acceleration response and spectral density functions.
Experimental investigations on RC
structural components
Static and vibration testing of a RC slab-strip member
has been carried out in undamaged and damaged states
towards identification of damage using the vibration
characteristics. The span length is 3.0 m (3.3 m overall
length) having a cross-section (width 3 depth) of 500
mm 3 100 mm. In this study, slab strip is chosen as a
test specimen so as to keep the size of the component
flexible in such a way that the third modal frequency is
below 200 Hz which is the most optimised force rating
of the shaker used for vibration testing. The geometric
and reinforcement details of the test specimen are
shown in Figure 1.
Experimental set-up and test procedure
Instrumentation using strain gages on reinforcing rods
has been carried out before casting the specimen. Strain
gages are affixed on the reinforcement bars as shown in
Figure 1 to measure the strain response during static
loading. To carry out the experimental investigations,
the slab strip is set up as simply supported on two rigid
supports as shown in Figure 2 over a span of 3 m. The
experimental procedure involves application of static
loading at intervals up to the ultimate load level to
induce damage in the form of cracking at various levels.
After each load increment, the static load is removed
Figure 1. Geometric and reinforcing details of RC member showing strain gaging on the reinforcement.
RC: reinforced concrete.
235
and vibration testing is carried out on the members.
The experimental procedure is formulated to obtain
more information of vibration data towards damage
assessment. In order to extract the non-linearities dur-
ing the analysis of vibration data, different excitation
functions and force levels are used. In order to obtain
the modal characteristics at different damage scenarios
in the RC slab strip, the entire static load range, from
the initial to the final stage, has been divided into five
levels: (1) up to the first crack (D1), (2) between the first
crack and yielding of steel (D2), (3) up to yielding of
steel (D3), (4) between yielding and the final load level
(D4) and (5) up to the final load level (D5). Preliminary
vibration tests are conducted to assess the support con-
ditions, and then in the undamaged state, complete
range of vibration testing is carried out. Once, all the
tests are confirmed with the satisfactory results, com-
plete range of vibration testing is carried out in unda-
maged condition and there after subsequent static load
levels up to failure.
Linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs)
are placed under the specimen at five locations equally
spaced along the length of beam, as shown in Figure 2,
to measure deflections, and seven accelerometers are
used for measuring acceleration response during vibra-
tion testing. LVDTs have a sensitivity of 0.01 mm, and
the accelerometers have a sensitivity of 1000 mV/g with
a dynamic range of 65 g. As data from a larger num-
ber of measurement points are planned to be acquired
with limited number of sensors, roving accelerometer
procedure is adopted. The measurements are taken at
27 locations using six test set-ups with seven acceler-
ometers. Out of seven, two accelerometers are used as
reference accelerometers and five are used for measure-
ment in each set-up, and in the last set-up, only two
accelerometers are used. Figure 3 shows the
236
Figure 2. Experimental set-up of the slab strip, support fixture to arrest rigid modes and LVDT locations.
LVDT: linear variable differential transformer.
experimental beam set-up and instrumentation on the
slab strip. Roving accelerometer set-up used for testing
is shown in Figure 3(c).
APS-400 electro-dynamic shaker along with Spectral
Dynamics Jaguar Signal Analyser and Controller and
Dytran 5 kg impact hammer are used for exciting the
beam with different types of excitation functions.
Different types of excitation forces such as sweep sine,
true random and burst random are used to obtain the
resonant frequencies and modal information and also
to study the influence and efficacy of each signal type
in extracting the modal characteristics.
Static testing to induce damage levels
Damage in the form of cracks is induced in the beam
using single-point loading at mid-span and in slab strip
using four-point bending loading by applying 35 cyclic
load levels to represent different damage levels. Strains
are measured on the reinforcing rods, and deflection is
measured at five locations during static testing. In addi-
tion to the strain and deflection measurements, crack
locations and lengths are monitored. Initial cracking is
observed at a loading of 7.9 kN with a deflection of 4.3
mm, and strain in the reinforcing rod is 530 me.
Yielding of the reinforcement steel occurred at 15 kN
with a deflection of 10.5 mm, and strain in the reinfor-
cing rod is 2400 me. The last load step is near to the
ultimate state at a loading of 35 kN with a deflection of
Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)
28 mm, and the strain in the reinforcing rod is 6000 me.
The initial crack occurred at 1.2 m distance from the
support under a loading of 7.9 kN and at a deflection
of 4.3 mm, as shown in Figure 4(a), but the cracks
are spread along the length of the span as shown in
Figure 4(b).
Influence of support on modal characteristics
During the initial testing and analysis of the accelera-
tion response data at undamaged condition, it is found
that some rigid body modes occurred in between the
two bending modes as shown in Figure 5(a). The rigid
body modes occurred between first and second modes
as well as between second and third modes (between
100 and 200 Hz). This results in poor estimation of sec-
ond and third bending modes because considerable
amount of energy was dissipated through the rigid
modes. The first three bending modes shown in the left
column of Figure 5(b) show poor mode shape responses
because of energy dissipated in rigid body modes. To
avoid the rigid modes, the vertical displacement at the
supports has been arrested by specially fabricated fix-
ture arrangement which allows the rotations as shown
in Figure 2. The mode shapes obtained after vertical
restraining of supports are shown in the right column
of Figure 5(b) which shows very good estimation of
bending modes as compared to the modes obtained
before restrainment.
Srinivas et al. 237

Figure 3. Instrumentation and experimental set-up on the slab strip: (a) shaker placement on the slab strip (APS-400 electro-
dynamic shaker), (b) excitation using instrumented hammer and (c) roving accelerometer set-up.

Figure 4. Initial and final cracking in the slab strip: (a) initial (first) crack and (b) widespread cracking.

Influence of mass of shaker on modal characteristics
The vibration testing is carried out using impact ham-
mer as well as using the shaker excitation. The excita-
tion for vibration testing is provided by the APS-400
electrodynamic as well as with Dytran 5 Kg impact
hammer (as shown in Figure 3(a)) using M/s Spectral
Dynamics Jaguar Signal Analyser and Controller, in
order to excite the beam with different types of dynamic
loadings. The shaker is the reaction masstype electro-
dynamic shaker which transfers the excitation force
through reaction from the base. As there is no fixity
between the shaker and the structure, only the mass of
the shaker will have influence on the vibration charac-
teristics, and the stiffness of the armature and damping
238 Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)

Figure 5. Influence of support conditions: (a) rigid body modes observed from the experimental data (between the bending
modes) and (b) mode shapes of the first three modes before and after vertical support restrainment for slab strip.

20 Hammer 80 Hammer
Shaker (Burst random) Shaker (Burst random)
18
Frequency (Hz)

Shaker (True random)

Frequency (Hz)

Shaker (True random) 70

16
60
14

12 50
Mode-1 Mode-2
10 40
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Damage level Damage level

150 Hammer
Shaker (Burst random)
Shaker (True random)
Frequency (Hz)

140

130

120
Mode-3
110
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Damage level

Figure 6. Comparison of frequency for the first three modes between hammer and shaker excitation.

of the shaker do not have any influence. Comparison frequency levels obtained from shaker excitation are
of frequencies for different damage levels is shown in considerably low compared to those from hammer exci-
Figure 6 for the first three modes. In this case, the tation. This is mainly because of the effect of shaker
Srinivas et al.
Figure 7. Acceleration response in time and frequency domain
at support and mid-span: (a) acceleration response and (b)
power spectra.
weight that is placed over the beam which influences
the frequency of the beam. The shaker weight is
approximately 40% of the total weight of the beam.
Investigations on modal data for damage-
sensitive features
The linear and non-linear damage-sensitive features
have been evaluated by formulating a testing procedure
and analysis of the vibration data in a certain frequency
band of excitation. Vibration testing carried out with
different force levels of excitation is used to identify the
non-linearities that will exist in the modal data by the
existence of damage. Preliminary vibration tests were
conducted to assess the support conditions. Typical accel-
eration response at mid-span as well as at support is
shown in Figure 7(a). Initially, the response is observed
to be of similar amplitude, but at the support, the fre-
quency response obtained from the sensors is decaying
faster than that observed at the mid-span as shown in
Figure 7(b). Since the comparative stiffness of the sup-
port is much higher than that of the specimen, the excita-
tion energy required near the support is much higher
than for span. At the fundamental frequency, there was
negligible response near the support of the specimen, but
there was significant movement of the support at the
239
frequency of the third mode of the beam. This corrobo-
rates with the observation as described in section
Influence of support on modal characteristics.
Statistical features of the signals
Damage-sensitive features can be obtained by analysing
the basic signal statistics obtained from the vibration
test data. One of the statistical parameters which can
be directly observed is the peak amplitude of the vibra-
tion response measured at different locations of the
specimen as shown in Figure 3. The amplitude of vibra-
tion response increases with the level of damage as
shown in Figure 8(a), and the variation in the peak
amplitude with different levels of damage is shown in
Figure 8(b). The other parameters are mean and root
mean square which will measure the central tendency
of the data because these values typically fall in the
central range of the time series amplitudes if the
response is linear. The mean variation for the slab-
strip data is shown in Figure 8(c) which shows a dis-
tinct shift in the mean value of the signal for each
damage case. The shift in the mean value will not be
evident in an accelerometer reading because piezo-
electric sensors do not measure the offset response.
The mean value is sensitive to outliers in the data, so
a few extreme data points can significantly influence
this feature. Similarly, a significant difference (10%
50%) between the incipient damage and the subse-
quent damage cases is observed from the mean-
squared values obtained from the vibration response.
For example, the mean value of displacement
response is changing from 0.018 at the undamaged
level (D0) to 0.04 at the final damage level (D5). The
standard deviation measures the dispersion about the
mean of the time series amplitudes. For a fixed level
of excitation, damage reduces the stiffness of the sys-
tem and, in general, causes an increase in the standard
deviation of the measured kinematic response quanti-
ties such as displacement, strain and acceleration.
Figure 8(d) shows the change in the standard devia-
tion of the displacement response obtained for the slab-
strip vibration data for increasing damage levels where
it can be noted that the standard deviation is increasing
with increase in damage levels. This series of tests shows
that there is a significant increase in the standard devia-
tion when the structure goes from the incipient damage
level to the next higher damage level. The variation in
standard deviation in the frequency values of the first
three modes is also shown in Figure 8(e), wherein it can
be observed that the standard deviation continues to
increase up to the yield point of steel but after that there
is a drop in the standard deviation. The non-linear
behaviour of concrete is continuously increasing mono-
tonically up to the third damage level. Up to this stage,
240 Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)

0.4
D5
D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0
D4
0.3
D3
D2
0.2 D1

Displacement amplitude (mm)

D0
0.1

0
1

115
172
229
286
343
400
457
514
571
628
685
742
799
856
913
970
58

1027
1084
1141
1198
1255
1312
1369
1426
1483
1540
1597
1654
1711
1768
-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
Data range

(a)

0.35 0.050
Peak displacement (mm)

0.3
0.040
0.25
Mean value

0.2
0.030
0.15
0.1 0.020
0.05
0 0.010
D0
0 D1
1 D2
2 D3
3 D4
4 D5
5 6 D0
0 D1
1 2D2 3D3 4D4 5D5 6
Damage level Damage level

(b) c)
0.065 2.5
Standard deviaon of Freq.

Mode-1
0.060 2 Mode-2
Standard deviaon

Mode-3
0.055 1.5

0.050 1

0.045 0.5

0.040 0
D0
0 D1
1 D2
2 D3
3 D4
4 5D5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Damage level Damage levels

(d) (e)

Figure 8. Variation of basic signal statistics of vibration data: (a) peak amplitudes of the displacement response at mid-span for
different damage levels, (b) peak variation of displacement, (c) mean variation of displacement, (d) standard deviation of displacement
and (e) standard deviation of frequency.

the cracks close to the mid-span are small and continu- linearity in the dynamic response is reduced afterwards
ously growing beyond the height of tension reinforce- which can be observed from Figure 8(e).
ment due to the increase in the loading. During this
stage, since the crack width is small, there will be a pre-
dominant crack closingopening behaviour which can- Transfer functions amplitude dependency range
not be expected when the crack is fully grown and The frequency response functions (FRFs) obtained
widened. Due to this phenomenon, the effect of non- from random excitation with different force amplitudes
Srinivas et al.
Figure 9. Transfer functions at different force amplitudes: (a) for D0, (b) for D1, (c) for D2, (d) for D3, (e) for D4 and (f) for D5.
varying from 10 to 50 N are analysed, and the transfer
functions at different force amplitudes for different
damage scenarios are shown in Figure 9.
The sampling frequency of the signals is 5120 Hz
and the signals are post-processed. They are split into
distinct 80% overlapping time-intervals of each T =
12.5 s length, which were Fourier-transformed and then
averaged. The final resolution in the frequency range
was 0.313 Hz. Transfer functions for the first modal
frequencies for the undamaged and five damage levels
are shown in Figure 9(a) to (f) for D0 to D5, respec-
tively. It can be observed from the figures that for the
241
same resonant frequency, at various excitation force
levels, the FRF shows minor deviation in frequency
even at undamaged level. This non-linear behaviour in
vibration characteristics is mainly because of the non-
homogeneous nature and existence of micro-cracks in
the concrete. The variation in the first modal frequency
increases with increase in the level of damage in non-
linear fashion. It is significant to mention here that this
variation between the two excitation levels can be con-
sidered as a damage indicating feature for defining the
damage.
242 Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)

17 63 145
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
16 61 140
Frequency (Hz)

59

Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)
15 135
57
14 55 130
13 53 125
12 51 120
49
11 115
Mode-1 47
10 Mode-2 Mode-3
45 110
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Damage level Damage level Damage level
(a)
17 61 145
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
16 59 140
Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)
15 57 135
14 55 130
53
13 125
51
12 120
49
11 47 115
Mode-1 Mode-2 Mode-3
10 45 110
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Damage level Damage level Damage level
(b)

Figure 10. Variation of frequency at different force levels: (a) burst random excitation and (b) true random excitation.

Figure 10(a) and (b) shows the variation of fre- vibration characteristics. This behaviour is much evi-
quency at different force levels of both burst and true dent in the case of first and third modes but not predo-
random excitations for different damage scenarios for minant in the second mode mainly because of the
the first three modes. It can be observed that for the occurrence of cracks at the mid-span region of the spe-
first and second modes, the frequency varies linearly up cimen which coincides with the node of the second
to the yielding of steel and then behaves in non-linear mode.
manner for further increase in damage levels. But in For estimating the modal information, enhanced fre-
the third mode, the non-linearity exists in the modal quency domain decomposition (EFDD) technique is
data from the initial stage itself. The same behaviour is used to obtain the reference frequency by peak picking
observed in both true and burst random excitations. as well as to get the mode shape and damping. The
This is due to the fact that higher modes can reflect the peak information in the EFDD is transformed back to
local behaviour better. the time domain, in the corresponding frequency band,
It can be observed that there is a clear drop in natu- that is used to estimate the mode shape and damping
ral frequency at every load level, and the undamaged of the structure at that identified mode. From further
beam demonstrates some non-linear behaviour that analysis of the signals, it is observed that the first eigen-
may be due to dead-band in the support excitation or frequency of the flexural mode shape (and also the
due to non-linearity in the input excitation. With higher modes which are not shown) depends on the
increase in the level of damage, the non-linearity in the excitation force amplitude. This is a non-linear effect
response is observed to be gradually increasing. and may be explained by non-consistent stiffness or
Initially, the strength of the non-linear behaviour modulus of elasticity of concrete and the inherent
increases with damage. The increase in damage at lower micro-cracks. This frequency variation band at differ-
load magnitudes can be attributed to the growth in ent force amplitudes is called amplitude dependency
internal micro-cracks or minute concretesteel bond range that can be used as damage indicator.27 It is
failure resulting in stronger non-linear behaviour, even observed that a strong increase in the amplitude depen-
though no surface cracking is visible to the naked eye. dency range for the first eigen-frequency (Figure 11),
After the initial load levels, the cracks in the mid- up to damage level, D3, followed by a decrease can be
span region increase beyond the level of tension rein- observed. From the experimental investigation, it has
forcement, possibly indicating the minimal effect on the been found that up to the damage level D3, the initia-
non-linear behaviour. With further increase in the load tion and propagation of cracks in the specimen cause
levels (damage levels), the non-linear stiffness appears the increase in amplitude dependency range. Beyond
to have decreased which in fact can be attributed to the the damage level D3, it is found that the cracks in the
cracks at midlevel of damage (D3), and this appears to concrete specimen are stabilised and only propagating
have high influence on the non-linear behaviour in further, which reduces the amplitude dependency range
Srinivas et al.
Figure 11. Variations of the amplitude dependency range of
the first three modes.
Figure 12. Variations of modal damping values with damage
scenario.
during the first mode. This change can be used as a
non-linear damage indicator, which is sensitive but
does not increase monotonously, which may lead to
misinterpretation, if the evolution of the process is not
known. This trend coincides with the damping evolu-
tion, as shown in Figure 12, which is induced by the
cracks.
With the progression of damage, the number and
length of cracks increased. Damping and non-linearities
are maximum when the cracks are open and wide. In
this case, cracks do not close during the small overlaid
oscillations. Also, it can be observed that before crack-
ing occurs, the damping mechanism is based on mate-
rial damping, which can be sufficiently approximated
by linear theory. Together with the cracks, the amount
of damping as such increases in a first step and the
mechanism changes to a non-linear one; this is due to
the fact that the oscillation of the opening and closing
of the cracks becomes unsymmetrical with respect to
change in stiffness and energy dissipation. This non-
linearity in the change of the damping mechanism with
the cracks, as has been found in this study, can be used
243
as an additional damage indicator. Some important
conclusions may be drawn from this study, which are
as follows: (1) I the undamaged state, the amplitude
dependency range is 3.2% for force amplitudes ranging
from 10% to 50%. It is evident that the amplitude
dependency range varies from 3.2% (for D0) to 10.3%
(for D2) and finally to 8.6% at D5 damage scenario.
(2) Damping is dependent on the excitation force
amplitude and the damage scenarios and seems to
increase accordingly (Figure 13). (3) When comparing
the different damage scenarios from undamaged to
fully damaged, a decrease in the eigen-frequency by
15% (the exact value is depending on the excitation
force amplitude) is clearly observed.
There are strong non-linearities which can be
observed from the dynamic characteristics of RC mem-
bers resulting from non-constant stiffness and damping
phenomena induced by the progressive cracking of con-
crete. It can be noted that in order to use the eigen-
frequencies as damage indicator, they must be mea-
sured under well-defined conditions, as otherwise the
variations will be too large. Additionally, the occur-
rence of higher harmonics in the structures response is
also observed with the non-linearities. The stiffness of
the beam is reduced when the cracks open in compari-
son to when the cracks are closed. This is the main rea-
son behind the fact that the harmonic signal is
deformed, which is equal to the occurrence of higher
harmonics in the frequency domain.
Dependence of loading history on vibration
characteristics
The results from the vibration tests indicate that the
FRF depends on the loading process. The magnitude
of the function varies with increased excitation, which
shows that the dynamic characteristics of the RC ele-
ments are load dependent.28 To understand the phe-
nomena, after each stage of static loading, a series of
dynamic tests with increasing excitation levels are per-
formed. The mid-span deflection normalised by the
pseudo-static displacement is plotted as a function of
the frequency ratio, that is, the ratio between the exci-
tation frequency and the natural frequency of the RC
slab, which is shown in Figure 14(a) and (b) for two
typical damage cases, namely, D2 and D5. The pseudo-
static deflection (Yps) of the beam is determined by
dividing the amplitude of the excitation force (F0) by
the secant stiffness of the slab estimated from the static
tests.
It can be observed from Figure 14 that the frequen-
cies decrease with the increase in static load. It is
observed that during the dynamic tests, the beams
sometimes vibrate at a certain amplitude for a short
244 Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)

6 1.26
Mode-1 Mode-2
1.24
Damping (%) 5.5

Damping (%)
1.22
5 1.2
1.18
4.5
1.16
4 1.14
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Damage level Damage level

1.2
Mode-3
1
0.8
Damping (%)

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Damage level

Figure 13. Damping ratio in percentage at different damage levels for the three modes.

20 20
Deecon rao

Deecon rao

15 15

10 10

5 5

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
Frequency rao Frequency rao
(a) (b)

Figure 14. Non-linear vibration of the slab with increasing excitation levels: (a) at D2 stage and (b) at D5 stage.

while and then suddenly dropped to a smaller ampli- decreases with the excitation levels implying that skew
tude in a certain range of excitation. The frequencies of the function represents the transient feature of a
corresponding to the peaks of the different functions damaged beam. This non-monotonic and abrupt phe-
vary significantly, indicating that the resonant fre- nomenon can be seen as another indication of non-
quency depends on the loading history. This phenom- linear vibration in the RC beams after cracking and the
ena represent a typical non-linear vibration behaviour resulting decrease in stiffness.
of a softening system, which eventually converges to a
resonant frequency after certain number of tests. This
Damage indicators based on non-linear
is likely attributable to the presence of micro-cracks,
whose surface condition is loading history dependent
vibration characteristics
but soon stabilises after a significant number of vibra- Non-linear damage indicators are used to identify
tion tests. It can also be seen that the responses are changes in structural response that are indicative of the
skewed in the domain of the peak response to the lower onset of non-linear system response. In some cases,
frequency side. The skew of the response functions these indicators are based on the assumption that the
Srinivas et al.
Figure 15. Phase-plane plots for sinusoidal vibration (A is the initial starting point): (a) undamped sinusoidal and (b) damped
sinusoidal.
undamaged system will exhibit linear response. Also,
changes in system response result from other causes as
well as due to operational and environmental issues.
Some of the issues related to the operational aspects of
system response can be found elsewhere.29
Non-linear response through phase plane
The non-linear behaviour requires a different way of
looking at vibration responses than that needs for
describing a linear system; one such feature is the phase
plane.
Considering the equation of motion for a single-
degree-of-freedom linear system,30 when the system is
excited by a simple harmonic forcing function
mx + c_x + kx = f (t)
where m is the mass, c is the damping, k is the stiffness
and f(t) is the harmonic forcing function.
The steady-state phase-plane plot can be written in
the form of an equation for ellipse as given in equation
(2)
x_ 2 x2
+ =R
1=m 1=k
where R is a constant that depends on the system
damping, input amplitude and input frequency. Thus,
the phase plane is a plot of velocity (_x) versus displace-
ment (x).
For a displacement function of x = A sin(vnt),
where vn is the natural frequency, the plot of x_ versus x
is shown in Figure 15. It is evident that point A corre-
sponds to vnt = 0, B to vnt = p/2, C to vnt = p and
D to vnt = 3p/2, so that a clockwise moving point P
traces out an enclosed and repeating elliptical path.
245
This phase-plane plot represents a stable centre point O
that corresponds to a static equilibrium point of mini-
mum potential energy.
Similarly, the damped oscillation gives the decaying
spiral path as shown in Figure 15(b), where point P
moves in the clockwise direction as before. The spiral
path is due to energy being dissipated during each
cycle, so that when the process starts at point A, it is
seen to decay to point B after one cycle. Figure 15(b)
represents a stable system, so that point O is a stable
focus point and is the static equilibrium position with
minimum potential energy. If the phase-plane plot
shows point P to move around point O along a con-
tinuously changing path, then the system may be
unstable. The mark of a stable system is for point P
to eventually enclose point O with a repeatable path.
1 The degree to which the plot deviates from the initial
focus is a measure of the non-linearity of the system,
and the absolute change in the natural frequencies is
used as a damage indicator. Further discussion on the
physical significance of phase plane can be found
elsewhere.27,19,31
In a system subjected to a constant forcing ampli-
tude and frequency, any change in the geometry of the
phase-plane plot can be attributed to changes in the
2
system parameters (mass, stiffness and damping). For a
constant amplitude and frequency of the forcing func-
tion, changes in the system properties (mass, stiffness
and damping) will cause a change in both the axes and
consequently the area of the ellipse formed by the x_
and x.
For a non-linear system, the differential equation
can be written in the form
 
d2x dx
+ f x, =0 3
dt2 dt
246
A convenient way to treat equation (3) is to rewrite it as
a system of two first-order ordinary differential equa-
tions (ODEs)
dx dy
= F x, y, = Gx, y 4
dt dt
A point which satisfies F(x, y) = 0 and G(x, y) = 0 is
called an equilibrium point. The solution to equation
(4) may be pictured as a curve in the xy phase plane
passing through the point of initial conditions (x0, y0).
Each time a motion passes through a given point (x, y),
its direction is always the same. In the special case that
the first part of equation (4) is dx/dt = y, the motion in
the upper half-plane y . 0 must proceed to the right,
that is, x must increase in time for y . 0, and vice versa
for y \ 0.
Using the phase plane of the cracked beam, two
non-linear damage features are defined in this study, by
quantifying the shift of focus of the phase plane and the
change in displacement coordinate for each vibration
cycle. The undamaged systems show elliptical planes
around a fixed focus point (x, y), while the cracked one
exhibits a shift of G(x, y)d, which can be defined as
xmax , ymax u  xmin , ymin d
G(x, y) =
2
where (xmax , ymax )u and (xmin , ymin )d are the displace-
ments for the focus point of the undamaged and dam-
aged systems, respectively.
The variation D(xi) on the displacement axis for
each cycle of the elliptical plane can be used to define
another damage indicating parameter Dd as
Dd = Dxi d  Dxi u 6 shift of focus of phase plane can be clearly observed
where D(xi)d and D(xi)u are the coordinates of the dis-
placement axis of ith cycle of the elliptical plane for
undamaged and cracked systems, respectively.
Non-linear damage identification of RC members. The slab
strip is excited at a natural frequency, and acceleration
data are measured for a fixed excitation energy. By
integrating the acceleration data twice with a moving
window-averaged base line to reduce the effects of
cumulative errors, a phase-plane plot is generated. To
produce more reliable trends, the combined signal was
averaged over five responses. The time axis was shifted
for each test, so that the end point of the valid region
of the most sensitive signal was at time zero. Then, the
frequency was averaged at each time point across the
tests. The phase planes have been plotted for the slab
strip from the vibration data measured for different
degrees of damage. The velocity and displacement at
mid-span are computed for each damage scenario, and
Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)
the phase-plane plots are reported between undamaged
(D0) and other cases corresponding to different magni-
tude of damage. The phase-plane plots are shown in
Figure 16.
It can be observed from this study that for a linear
system, that is, in undamaged state, the path taken in
the phase plane is a circle. For the increased damage
levels, the degree to which the calculated path deviates
from the circle is considered as a measure of the non-
linearity of the system that can be used as one of the
non-linear damage indicator. Also, in the phase plane,
the change in the radius of the spiral represents the
transient response and the final radius is the steady-
state response. With the change in damage levels, the
path can be seen shifting to a new steady-state position.
The frequency components in the plots consist of
mainly the first, second and the third modes resulting
from the impact excitation. Non-linearity exists in both
the velocity and displacement responses with damage in
the slab and is more significant in the displacement
response that can be observed from Figure 16 in which
the deviation in radius along the displacement axis is
more than that along the velocity axis. The deviation in
radius for displacement amplitude for different damage
levels is shown in Figure 17(a), and the shift in focus
5 point of the phase plane for different damage levels
with reference to undamaged level is shown in Figure
17(b). These are according to equations (5) and (6). The
first point in Figure 15(a) also shows the shift of phase
plane. It can be observed from Figure 17(a) that in
undamaged cases, the difference in cycles of phase
plane along the displacement axis is linear, and for
damaged cases, this becomes non-linear, and this non-
linearity increases with increase in damage level. The
from Figure 17, from which the damage can be ascer-
tained. It can be observed from Figure 17(b) that for
the undamaged case (D0), the phase plane is consis-
tently traversing around a centre point. But, when the
slab begins to crack, the circular path deviates in a non-
linear fashion. Also, there is a shift in the origin of the
displacement plot with damage, and the non-linearity
in the displacement response is less significant. The
phase-plane plots of damaged cases show more pro-
nounced non-linearity in the velocity response com-
pared to that in displacement responses.
Superharmonics as damage indicators
Another significant non-linear damage feature which
can be used is the occurrence of higher harmonics in the
spectral functions. Some higher harmonics (superhar-
monics) are observed while analysing the spectral den-
sity functions obtained from the frequency domain
decomposition which can be used as one of the damage
Srinivas et al. 247

Figure 16. Phase-plane plots comparing undamaged and damaged scenarios: (a) comparing D0 and D2, (b) comparing D0 and D3,
(c) comparing D0 and D4 and (d) comparing D0 and D5.

0.010 0.05
0.005 Cycle No. 0.04
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0.04
0.000
Displacement amplitude

Shi of focus

-0.005
0.03
0.03
-0.010
0.02
-0.015
0.02
-0.020
0.01
-0.025
D0 D1 D2 0.01
-0.030
0.00
-0.035 D3 D4 D5
D1
1 D2
2 D3
3 D4
4 D5
5
-0.040 Damage level
(a) (b)

Figure 17. Damage indicators from phase-plane plots: (a) displacement amplitude variation and (b) shift of focus point.

indicators in non-linear vibration responses. To clearly Also, it is required to excite the structure with harmonic
obtain the harmonics in the transfer function, adequate excitation function at a particular frequency range. The
input excitation is required to be given to the structure higher harmonics observed in the spectral functions for
such that extraneous noise will not dominate the signal. typical damage scenarios are shown in Figure 18, in
248
Figure 18. The spectral functions visualising the increase in the first few super (higher) harmonics for a typical force amplitude
(higher harmonics at 2, 3 and 5 times frequency).
which the harmonics are indicated with red circular
lines, that is, at 35, 50 and 102 Hz, that is, at two, three
and six times the resonant frequency. The occurrence of
cracks and its increasing level can be observed in Figure
18 where the cracks of the damaged beam become
clearly visible as a peak at n (n = 1, 2, 3, .) times of
the eigen-frequency, clearly at the first higher harmonic
of the eigen-frequency. This pseudo-resonance may also
be used as damage indicator.
When analysing the signals in Figure 18, it becomes
clear that the increasing cracks generate higher and
higher harmonics, and as a result, the pseudo-resonance
in the transfer function increases, which might be used
as an additional damage indicator. When comparing
scenarios D4, D5 and D6, the differences are less pro-
nounced and comply with the previous scenarios. Here,
the peak of the pseudo-resonance is still growing, but
the rate of increase is not sufficient to distinguish the
damage level which is mainly because of the excitation
force which is used for this study. It is observed that to
clearly distinguish the non-linearity with the superhar-
monics, it is necessary to excite the structure with the
clearly defined harmonic excitation such as sweep sine.
Summary and conclusion
From this study, it is found that there are strong non-
linearities resulting from non-consistent stiffness and
Structural Health Monitoring 13(3)
damping phenomena induced by the progressive crack-
ing of RC. It is to be noted that in order to use the
eigen-frequency as damage indicator, it must be mea-
sured under well-defined conditions; otherwise, varia-
tion will be too large. The stiffness of the beam is
reduced when the cracks open in comparison to when
the cracks are closed. That is why the deformation of
well-controlled sine signal is observed, which is equal
to the occurrence of higher harmonics in the frequency
domain. The non-linear effect in vibration signatures
can be identified by analysing basic signal statistics,
non-linear relations in amplitude, frequency, mode
shapes and damping by obtaining the vibration
response at different levels of excitation. Phase-plane
plots are also useful tools in identifying the non-
linearity in the vibration responses towards assessing
the damage. It is also observed that superharmonics
exists in the spectral density functions, and by properly
evaluating the harmonics, the non-linear vibration
response can be identified and can be used as an impor-
tant damage index parameter. The emerging first
higher harmonic (at 2 times the first frequency) is gen-
erated mainly by the non-linearity or the cracks within
the concrete when the structure is oscillating in reso-
nance at the first frequency, that is, by the structure
itself. The increasing cracks generate higher and higher
harmonics, and as a result, the pseudo-resonance at
higher harmonic frequency in the transfer function
Srinivas et al.
increases, which can be used as an additional damage
indicator. But, a suitable experimental procedure is
required to identify clearly the harmonics and its varia-
tion by applying a harmonic excitation at different
force and frequency ranges.
Acknowledgements
This article is being published with the kind permission of the
Director, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre,
Chennai, India.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
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