Multiple damage detection in composite beams using Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithm

This paper presents a methodology for damage detection and localization in composite beams using vibration data, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The data was acquired by developing a software that performs dynamic analysis of composite beams based on the Finite Element Method (FEM). The objective function makes use of natural frequencies and Modal Assurance Criterion. After validating the effectiveness of the proposed method, a comparative study between the performances of PSO and GA in detecting multiple and single damage scenarios is carried out. Then, the effect of noise is investigated by taking different noise levels in the modal data. It appears that the noise has a negligible effect on the performance of the presented approaches.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.23.4.15254