Damage Detection in Members and Connections of Plane Frame with Flexible Connections Using Residual Force Method and Whale Optimization Algorithm

This paper proposes a quantification and location damage detection model for plane frames with flexible connections considering simultaneous damage in members and connections. A two-phase method is produced to decrease the computational efforts considerably. The first phase presents proposed damage indicators depending on the residual force vector concept to obtain the expected damaged members and connections separately. The second phase considers damage quantification as a variable into the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) to obtain the optimum damage quantification value of the expected damaged members and connections attained in the first phase. WOA is a recent promising algorithm that has shown excellence in optimizing structural problems. Moreover, the biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is used in the second phase to compare the WOA and BBO algorithms. As it is obvious, the first phase diminishes the search space in the second phase, which in turn leads to a substantial reduction in computational efforts. The model is applied on three plane frame examples with flexible beam-to-column connections considering different damage scenarios. Results have proved the proficiency of the proposed method to accurately detect the quantification and location of damage with minimal computational efforts, and the superiority of WOA in comparison to BBO.