Baseline-free damage detection in bridges using acceleration records with the application of Laplacian<bold> </bold>

Existing damage detection techniques are reliant on monitoring the anomalies in the structure behavior. This requires knowledge of the undamaged baseline structure. This paper introduces a "Baseline-free" damage detection approach that utilizes the acceleration records of the structure to precisely estimate the loci of the damages without the need of using prior data from the structure. The paper investigates the application of Laplacian - second derivative - to the structure measured accelerations in order to localize the damages signature in the measurements. The paper will emphasize on bridges as a case study. The bridge will be damaged with different damage levels and locations to investigate the approach fidelity in quantifying the damage severity and position. First, acceleration measurements from the bridge are evaluated for different cases. Afterward, Laplacian is applied to the amplitudes of these measurements to magnify anomalies within them.<bold> </bold>