Changes in load characteristics, deterioration with age, environmental influences and random actions may cause local or global damage in structures, especially in bridges, which are designed for long life spans. Continuous health monitoring of structures will enable the early identification of distress and allow appropriate retrofitting in order to avoid failure or collapse of the structures. In recent times, structural health monitoring (SHM) has attracted much attention in both research and development. Local and global methods of damage assessment using the monitored information are an integral part of SHM techniques. In the local case, the assessment of the state of a structure is done either by direct visual inspection or using experimental techniques such as acoustic emission, ultrasonic, magnetic particle inspection, radiography and eddy current. A characteristic of all these techniques is that their application requires a prior localization of the damaged zones. The limitations of the local methodologies can be overcome by using vibration-based methods, which give a global damage assessment. The vibration-based damage detection methods use measured changes in dynamic characteristics to evaluate changes in physical properties that may indicate structural damage or degradation. The basic idea is that modal parameters (notably frequencies, mode shapes, and modal damping) are functions of the physical properties of the structure (mass, damping, and stiffness). Changes in the physical properties will therefore cause changes in the modal properties. Any reduction in structural stiffness and increase in damping in the structure may indicate structural damage. This research uses the variations in vibration parameters to develop a multi-criteria method for damage assessment. It incorporates the changes in natural frequencies, modal flexibility and modal strain energy to locate damage in the main load bearing elements in bridge structures such as beams, slabs and trusses and simple bridges involving these elements. Dynamic computer simulation techniques are used to develop and apply the multi-criteria procedure under different damage scenarios. The effectiveness of the procedure is demonstrated through numerical examples. Results show that the proposed method incorporating modal flexibility and modal strain energy changes is competent in damage assessment in the structures treated herein.

[pt] Dentre as diversas metodologias de detecção de danos, destacam-se os métodos de identificação de danos baseados na resposta da vibração (Vibration-based damage identification - VBDI), uma vez que a deterioração presente em elementos estruturais influencia diretamente na resposta dinâmica global e local da estrutura ocasionando alterações nos parâmetros dinâmicos. As diferentes abordagens encontradas na revisão de literatura para detecção dinâmica de danos focam principalmente em estruturas unidimensionais ou retas, que, por sua vez, podem não representar o comportamento dinâmico real de estruturas arrojadas como pontes e passarelas com geometria diferenciada. Alguns índices modais, nomeadamente curvatura modal, flexibilidade modal e energia de deformação modal, foram avaliados para uma passarela de aço com geometria curva. Para isso utilizou-se um modelo de elementos finitos da mesma, de onde foram extraídos os modos de vibração tridimensionais. Além disso, um índice recentemente proposto, denominado vetor resultante, que incorpora coordenadas modais tridimensionais, também é avaliado e comparado aos índices mencionados anteriormente. Os resultados mostram que a precisão dos índices na localização de danos está correlacionada com a região da estrutura onde o dano se encontra. Conclui-se então que para detecção de dano em uma estrutura real, é necessário que se utilize mais de um índice de dano. O impacto da magnitude do dano na acurácia dos índices é também estudado. A influência do dano nas vigas adjacentes e como isso se reflete nos índices também é investigada, a fim de evitar ambiguidade na localização de danos, e para direcionar corretamente programas de inspeção e monitoramento da integridade estrutural. / [en] Among the various damage detection methodologies, the Vibration-based damage identification (VBDI) methods stand out, since the deterioration present in structural elements directly influences the global and local dynamic response of the structure, causing changes in the dynamic parameters. The different approaches found in the literature review for dynamic damage detection focus mainly on one-dimensional or straight structures, which in turn may not represent the actual dynamic behavior of bold structures such as bridges and footbridges with different geometry. Some modal indices, namely modal curvature, modal flexibility, and modal strain energy were evaluated for a steel footbridge with curved geometry. For this purpose, a finite element model of it was used, from which the three-dimensional mode shapes were extracted. In addition, a recently proposed index, called resultant vector, which incorporates three-dimensional modal coordinates, is also evaluated and compared to the aforementioned ones. The results show that the accuracy of the indices for damage localization is correlated with the region of the structure where the damage is located. It is then concluded that for damage detection in a real structure, it is necessary to use more than one damage index. The impact of the damage magnitude on the accuracy of the indices is also studied. The influence of damage in adjacent beams and how this is reflected in the indices is also investigated in order to avoid ambiguity in damage location, and to correctly direct inspections and structural integrity monitoring programs.