Damage assessment of beams from changes in natural frequencies using ant colony optimization

A numerical method is presented here to detect and assess structural damages from changes in natural frequencies using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm. It is possible to formulate the inverse problem in terms of optimization and then to utilize a solution technique employing ACO to assess the damage/damages of structures using natural frequencies. The laboratory tested data has been used to verify the proposed algorithm. The study indicates the potentiality of the developed code to solve a wide range of inverse identification problems in a systematic manner. The developed code is used to assess damages of beam like structures using a first few natural frequencies. The outcomes of the simulated results show that the developed method can detect and estimate the amount of damages with satisfactory precision.