Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is an effective alternative to conventional inspections which are time-consuming and subjective. SHM can detect damage early and reduce maintenance cost and thereby help reduce the likelihood of catastrophic structural events to infrastructure such as bridges. After reviewing the Damage Index Method, an Iterative Damage Index Method (IDIM) is proposed to improve the accuracy of damage detection. These two damage detection techniques are compared numerically and experimentally using measurements from two structures, a simply supported beam and a pedestrian bridge. The dynamic properties for the numerical comparison are extracted by modal analysis in ABAQUS, while the dynamic characteristics for the experimental comparison are obtained with the Wireless Sensor Network and the Time Domain Decomposition. In both the numerical and experimental phases, the accuracy of damage predictions from each method is quantified. Compared to the traditional damage detection algorithm, the proposed IDIM is shown to be less arbitrary and more accurate when applied to both structures. The proposed IDIM has the potential to improve SHM.

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