The inner product vector as an output-only cross-correlation-based feature to structural damage assessment

This paper presents a structural damage assessment method that relies on a cross-correlation-based damage sensitive feature known as Inner Product Vector (IPV). Such a feature is extracted from the dynamic response measured at different locations within a structure. Previous investigations on the use of the IPV in a damage detection framework were conducted through laboratory tests by manipulating the excitation source in an input-output approach. In this paper, a new output-only approach has been developed to extract the Inner Product Vector only from the structural response time histories without knowledge of the input excitation. This is a more realistic scenario in structural health monitoring applications where it is difficult (in some cases, impossible) to monitor the external forces. The new estimation of the IPV is accomplished by taking the cross-correlations between filtered contributions to the overall structural response. It is shown how the elements of the IPV are affected by changes of the structural properties induced by damage and how effective the proposed approach is in the presence of external disturbances. The proposed approach has been proven to be very effective in dealing with dense sensor networks requiring large computational efforts. Numerical and experimental tests have been performed to address the reliability of the proposed damage index as a damage sensitive feature in an output-only framework.