IDENTIFICATION OF STRUCTURAL MULTIPLE DAMAGED LOCATIONS BASED ON DEMPSTER-SHAFER THEORY OF WEIGHTED BALANCE OF EVIDENCE

In this paper information fusion technique is used to identify the locations of structural damage. To consider the multiple evidence from different sources of different importance or reliability when they are combined according to Dempster-Shafer theory, a new method is presented. Weighted average of all or preferred evidence, is taken before combination. Thus, the balanced evidence will not change the weighted average of all or the preferred evidence. The simulation results demonstrate the excellent performance of Dempster-Shafer fusion theory to identify damage location as compared with the methods based on mode shape change or frequency change. The proposed method is validated in improving the combinations accuracy of multiple evidences.