RC beams damage detection through probabilistic analysis of the

dynamic response
M. Breccolotti & A.L. Materazzi
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

Keywords: Vibration, Damage Assessment, Dynamic Testing, Probabilistic Analysis, Health Monitoring

ABSTRACT: A new experimental method for the evaluation of damage in reinforced concrete beams is
proposed. It is based on the statistical analysis of the dynamic response to white noise Gaussian stochastic
loads. The damage is correlated to the non-Gaussian characteristics of the response. The approach doesnt re-
quire information about the dynamic properties of the undamaged structure, since its behaviour is assumed to
be linear. Moreover the proposed method is insensitive to the environmental effects. The effectiveness of the
procedure has been validated through experimental tests on artificially damaged RC beams carried out at the
University of Perugia, Italy.

The non linearity of cracked RC beams has been

1 INTRODUCTION
The assessment of existing reinforced concrete
structures is a topic that is becoming more and more
important in the field of civil engineering, with spe-
cial reference to bridges and buildings.
Since 70s experimental methods, based on dy-
namic tests, have been introduced to evaluate the
state of conservation of the most relevant infrastruc-
tures. These methods try to estimate the damage by
measuring the variations of the dynamic characteris-
tics of the investigated structure, but they display
some imperfections. For instance, they are sensitive
to the effects of the environmental conditions and
need information on the dynamic properties of the
structure in the undamaged condition, information
which are seldom available.
In literature most references deal with cracked
steel beams where the cracks are assumed to be al-
ways open (Patil and Maiti (2003), Lin et al. (2002),
Kim and Stubbs (2003)). Just few papers regard RC
beams. Maeck et al. (2000), for instance, proposed a
method to evaluate the dynamic stiffness distribution
in a reinforced concrete beam in the neighbourhood
of a crack for damage identification purpose.
Nevertheless the actual behaviour of damaged re-
inforced concrete structures is more complex than
those of structure made with homogeneous materi-
als, as they are affected by cracks that alternatively
open and close during vibration, while the rebars
cross the cracks. That modifies the dynamic behav-
iour of damaged elements.
studied in the time-frequency domain in recent years
by Neild et al. (2003) and by Owen et al. (2001). A
finite element for cracked beams based on the linear
fracture mechanic theory has been proposed by
Saavedra & Cuitio (2001). A compliance-based
damage assessment procedure has also been pro-
posed by Petryna and Krtzig (2005). The Authors
used this method to analyze a damaged concrete
girder modelled with multi-layered finite elements.
All these methods make use of the experimentally
determined eigenfrequencies and modal shapes and
thus are affected by environmental condition and re-
quire, for their application, the knowledge of the dy-
namic characteristics in the undamaged state.
2 A NEW DAMAGE DETECTION METHOD
To overcome some of the disadvantages of the cur-
rent dynamic methods, a new damage detection
technique based on the probabilistic analysis of the
dynamic response of RC structures subjected to
Gaussian white noise excitation has been developed.
The method relies on the principle that the re-
sponse of a non-linear system to a Gaussian excita-
tion is non-Gaussian. Higher order statistical mo-
ments can be used as a measure of the non-Gaussian
response and thus as a damage indicator.
The main advantage of the procedure is that the
knowledge of the structural response before the on-
set of damage is no longer needed, as the undam-
aged system is characterized by a linear (and thus
Gaussian) response.
Figure 1. RC test beam and experimental setup.

This approach has been investigated previously

from the theoretical point of view only in few bib-
liographical references (Cacciola & Muscolino
(2002) and Cacciola et al. (2003)). These papers
show that the response of a cracked RC beam sub-
jected to a Gaussian load is no longer Gaussian and
that the value of the skewness coefficient can be
used to determine and localize the damage.
Nevertheless the data considered by the Authors
regard nodal rotations, quantities difficult to measure
reliably in most real cases.
Furthermore, preliminary field applications
showed that the deviation of the response from
Gaussianity is hardly detectable under a constant
RMS excitation. Better estimates can be achieved
using a set of increasing intensity excitations.
The method proposed in the present paper allows
establishing correlations between the mechanical
properties of RC cracked beams and their dynamic
response to white noise excitation. Some laboratory
tests carried out on artificially damaged RC beams
have been used to validate the proposed methodol- Figure 2. Experimental setup. The shaker is in the foreground.
ogy.
The beams dynamic response has been observed
with 7 equally spaced accelerometers placed on the
3 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS bottom faces of the beams. The acceleration at each
measurement point was acquired at a 2.0 KHz sam-
pling frequency.
3.1 Experimental setup The external excitation has been generated to be
A set of experimental tests on artificially damaged compatible with a power spectral density function
RC beams with length 4.3 m and cross-section 0.2 x (PSD) with constant amplitude in the range 20 50
0.3 m, was carried out in order to estimate the effec- Hz and null values elsewhere. The ordinate of the
tiveness and the reliability of the proposed statistical PSD was selected taking into account the power
method. A control loop electrodynamic shaker was available at the shaker supply.
used to apply a white noise Gaussian load in a three A load cell located between the shaker arm and
point bending configuration (Figure 1 and Figure 2). the beam served as feedback to the shaker to follow
the desired PSD function. The RMS of the applied
force can be obtained by computing the actual PSD 3

function and by integrating it: 2.5

distribution PDF
2

FRMS = 20 PSD ( f ) df
50
(1) RMS Force 1.5

10.81 N 1

0.5
3.2 Schedule of the tests
0
-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
The schedule of the laboratory tests is reported in 2
acceleration (m/s2)

Table 1. It included 9 increasing damage levels real-

ized by means of concrete cover removal, rebars par- 1.5

tial cuts and application of an increasing quasi-static

distribution PDF
external load in a four point bending test scheme to RMS Force 1

induce a proper crack pattern in the beams. 15.06 N

0.5
In correspondence of the damage steps no. 4, 7
and 8 (see Table 2) several dynamic tests have been 0
-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
repeated with increasing value of the RMS Gaussian 1.4
acceleration (m/s2)

excitation. 1.2

Table 1. Definition of the damage steps. 1

distribution PDF
0.8
RMS Force
Step no. Damage step 0.6
22.40 N
0 Undamaged beam 0.4

0.2

1 Applied load of 23.55 kN 0

-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
acceleration (m/s2)
2 Lower concrete cover removal at midspan 1.4

3 Partial cut (50 %) of rebar no. 1 1.2

distribution PDF
4 Partial cut (50 %) of rebar no. 4 0.8
RMS Force
5 Partial cut (50 %) of rebar no. 2 27.87 N 0.6

0.4
6 Partial cut (50 %) of rebar no. 3
0.2

7 Upper concrete cover removal at midspan 0

-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
acceleration (m/s2)
8 Applied load of 39.25 kN 0.8

0.7

0.6
Table 2. RMS of applied force.
distribution PDF

0.5

2 RMS Force 0.4

Frequency range Force PSD (N /Hz) RMS Force (N) 36.43 N 0.3

20 50 Hz 4.25 10.81 0.2

0.1

20 50 Hz 8.25 15.06 0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
acceleration (m/s2)
20 50 Hz 18.25 22.40 0.7

0.6
20 50 Hz 28.25 27.87
0.5
distribution PDF

20 50 Hz 48.25 36.43 0.4

RMS Force
0.3
20 50 Hz 88.25 49.26 49.26 N
0.2

20 50 Hz 158.25 65.97 0.1

0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
acceleration (m/s2)
0.5
3.3 Tests results
0.4
The first four statistical moments have been deter-
distribution PDF

mined for the measured acceleration signals. RMS Force

0.3

In Figure 3 are depicted the statistical distribu- 65.97 N 0.2

tions of the accelerations recorded at the damage

step no. 4 for different values of the exciting force. 0.1

In the picture the bar graphs report the actual ac- 0

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

celeration distributions while the solid lines indicate acceleration (m/s2)

the normal distributions with the same mean value Figure 3. Acceleration probability density functions for damage
and standard deviation. step no. 4 for increasing RMS forces.
 As expected the distributions become larger and
lower as the excitation level increases.
From the same picture it can be noticed how the
acceleration distribution, initially Gaussian, looses
its symmetry as the excitation increases.
The asymmetry of the distributions can be syn-
thetically described by means of the 3rd statistical
moment (skewness) defined as:
1 ( x )
3
m structure affects quite heavily the dynamic proper-
skewness = 3 i i = 33
N
where is the mean value of the distribution and
is its standard deviation. The results are depicted
in Figure 4.
0.00
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06
Skewness
-0.08
-0.10
-0.12
damage step no. 4
-0.14 damage step no. 7
damage step no. 8
-0.16
0 10 20 30 40 50
RMS Force (N)
Figure 4. Skewness values for damage steps no. 4, 7 and 8 and
for different values of the external excitation.
3.4 Comments to the experimental results
Taking the 3rd statistical moment (skewness) as an
indicator of the non-linear behaviour, some com-
ments can be made on the tests results.
For every damage step it can be observed that the
structure behaves linearly under low intensity exter-
nal forces, even if it is damaged and cracked. In fact
the skewness values are very close to zero.
An increase of the structural non-linearity under
increasing external loads can be observed without
any change in the actual damage condition.
For the damage steps no. 4 and 7 the values of the
skewness are very similar, even if the beam under-
goes several localized damages (partial cut of the re-
bars no. 4 and 7 and upper concrete cover removal).
On the contrary results from step no. 8 display lower
values of the skewness coefficient.
These results can be interpreted as follows:
- a smeared crack pattern affects the linearity of the
response and can be detected;
- localized damage affects only in a negligible
manner the linearity of the whole beam;
- under low-severity cracking, the non linearity in-
creases with damage, as the displacements at the
cracks tips are small enough to allow the opened
cracks to close;
- under high-severity cracking, the non-linearity
decreases, as the cracks are too wide to close.
4 FREQUENCY DOMAIN ANALYSES
The intensity of the applied force used to excite the
(2) ties of the cracked beam. Classical frequency analy-
ses of the recorded acceleration histories for the
same damage steps and for the same external forces
show that the natural frequencies vary with the in-
tensity of the applied load.
In Table 3 are listed the first two values of fre-
quency of the damaged beam for the damage step
no. 4 and for different values of the exciting force.
The actual first frequency is the second one. The
first one appeared just after the cracking of the beam
and corresponds to the phenomenon of the damage
induced frequency splitting that has been analyzed
by the Authors in a previous paper (Breccolotti &
Materazzi (2004)).
It can be noted how both eigenvalues decrease as
the excitation level increases. The 1st and the 2nd ei-
genfrequencies underwent a decrease of 1.89 Hz and
1.65 Hz respectively, corresponding to a variation of
6.9% and 5.0%, giving evidence to the non linearity
60 70
of the cracked concrete beam.
Similar results are reported in Table 4 and 5,
which refer to the damage step no. 7 and no. 8 re-
spectively.
Table 3. First natural frequencies vs. RMS excitation (damage
step no. 4).
RMS Force (N)
10.81 15.06 22.40 27.87 36.43 49.26 65.97
st
1 frequency (Hz) 27.28 26.91 26.61 26.91 25.75 25.87 25.39
2nd frequency (Hz) 33.14 32.89 32.22 32.34 32.22 32.10 31.49
Table 4. First natural frequencies vs. RMS excitation (damage
step no. 7).
RMS Force (N)
10.81 15.06 22.40 27.87 36.43 49.26 65.97
1st frequency (Hz) 27.09 26.86 26.24 26.37 26.12 25.63 -----
2nd frequency (Hz) 32.59 32.23 31.61 31.62 31.46 31.13 -----
Table 5. First natural frequencies vs. RMS excitation (damage
step no. 8).
RMS Force (N)
10.81 15.06 22.40 27.87 36.43 49.26 65.97
1st frequency (Hz) 26.12 26.12 25.51 25.63 25.15 24.78 24.17
2nd frequency (Hz) 31.49 31.49 31.25 30.64 30.64 30.40 29.30
 This behaviour is a serious limit to the application
of dynamic testing with ambient source excitation
for which the level of the applied force is unknown.
5 MODELLING OF THE EXPERIMENTAL
BEHAVIOUR
5.1 Formulation of the non-linear constitutive law
The experimental behaviour has been modelled
using the finite element method. All the non-
linearities have been concentrated into non-linear
spring elements characterized by the followings
force - displacement relationship:
P ku 0 0 u
V = kv 0 v (3)
M
sym. k + L2 / 4 kv
where P, V and M are, respectively, the internal ax-
ial force, the shear force and the bending moment; ku
and kv are the axial and transversal linear stiffnesses;
u, v and are the relative axial displacement, the
relative transversal displacement and the relative ro-
tation between the end sections of the element (see
Figure 5), defined as:
u = ui u j
v = vi v j
= i j
Figure 5. End displacements for the non linear spring element.
The momentrotation relationship k (Figure 6) is
non linear. It is described by the equation:
K1 for C
M =
K 2 + ( K 2 K1 ) C for C
The cracks are supposed to be initially open and
the flexural stiffness is K1. Positive rotations further
open the cracks, while negative rotations close them.
Until the relative rotation between the ends of the
non-linear element reaches the limiting value -C the
cracks remain open and the bending stiffness is
equal to K1. For < -C the cracks are completely
closed and the element behaves as an uncracked
element with tangent stiffness K2, greater than K1.
Under low level external excitation the relative
rotation between the initial and the final section of
the cracked element remain in the range -C<<C
and thus the response is linear and the system con-
taining the element provide a Gaussian response to a
Gaussian excitation. Conversely, under bigger
enough external forces, the rotation becomes smaller
than -C, the cracks alternatively open and close, the
behaviour becomes non linear and the response non
Gaussian.
Localized damage (concrete cover removal or re-
bar partial cuts) slightly affects the flexural stiffness
of the RC element, as can be seen from the compari-
son of the eigenfrequency values listed in Table 3
and Table 4. The first frequency practically under-
goes no variation while the second one exhibits a
minor decrease.
M
C
Arctg K1
Arctg K2
(4)
Figure 6. Momentrotation relationship for an RC element with
breathing cracks.
uncracked beam
slightly cracked beam
(5)
strongly cracked beam
Figure 7. Momentrotation relationship for different cracking
conditions.
 The increase of the non-linearity at the first stage
of cracking and its decrease for more developed
cracking patterns can be described by a proper varia-
tion of the mechanical parameters K1 and C, as
shown in Figure 7, where K2 is supposed to be con-
stant.
An uncracked RC element displays the same be-
haviour for positive and negative rotation (solid line
in Figure 7).
Slightly cracked elements present a smaller stiff-
ness for positive rotation than those of uncracked
beams and a discontinuity in the M- relationship
for small values of the parameter C (dashed line in
Figure 7). Strongly cracked beams present an even
smaller K1 stiffness for positive rotations and a
smaller value of the parameter C (dotted line).
In the more general damage identification prob-
lem for cracked beams, assuming that a single por-
tion of the beam is affected by cracks, the following
parameters must be defined: the position and the ex-
tent of the cracked zone, the flexural stiffness of the
cracked element with fully open and fully closed
cracks (say K1 and K2) and the relative rotation caus-
ing the complete closure of the cracks (say C).
Nevertheless, in the present study, to verify the
applicability of the method, the position and the ex-
tent of the cracked zone, as well the flexural stiff-
ness of the uncracked and cracked beam K2 and K1
were supposed to be known, while the remaining
unknown, C, has been estimated by means of the
proposed methodology.
Assuming that the curvature remains constant
along the non linear spring elements, the parameters
K1 and K2 have been evaluated as:
E J1
K1 =
L (6)
E J2
K2 =
L
where E is the concrete elastic modulus, L is the
length of the element and J1 and J2 are the moments
of inertia of the cracked and uncracked section.
An artificial white noise external force has been
applied to the model at node no. 4 to simulate the ac-
tion of the shaker (Figure 10). The external force has
been generated to be compatible with a constant
power spectral density in the range 20 50 Hz, ap-
plying the well known algorithm proposed by Shi-
nozuka & Jan (1972).
A preliminary parametric analysis allowed estab-
lishing the relation between the parameter C and the
skewness.
In Figure 9 is depicted the skewness of the accel-
eration computed by the finite element model versus
the values of C for an external RMS force equal to
49.26 N.
As expected, under a constant excitation level, the
response of the system tends to be more and more
linear as the absolute value of the parameter C in-
creases.
0.0

5.2 Application of the model to the experimental -1.0x10

-6

behaviour -2.0x10
-6

The experimental results have been studied using -3.0x10

-6

the finite element model depicted in Figure 8, point- -4.0x10

-6

ing the attention on the damage step no. 8. -5.0x10

-6

The model includes two non-linear rotational

c

-6
-6.0x10
spring elements, each one 50 cm long, located at -6
-7.0x10
midspan and representative of the cracked portion of
the beam. The bending stiffness K2 has been calcu-
-6
-8.0x10

lated taking into account the elastic properties of the -9.0x10

-6

uncracked section. The stiffness K1 has been calcu- -1.0x10

-5

-0.60 -0.50 -0.40 -0.30 -0.20 -0.10 0.00

lated neglecting the contribution of concrete in ten- Skewness
sion, applying the hypotheses commonly used in the
analysis of RC sections. Figure 9. Correlation between skewness and parameter c.

5.3 Identification of the state of cracking

Figure 8. Non-linear finite element model of the damaged
beam.
During the simulation the attention was focused
on the damage step no. 8, which was carried out ap-
plying at the node no. 4 a white noise force whose
RMS was 49.26 N (see Figure 10).
The acceleration recorded at that location during
the experimental is shown in Figure 11.
On the basis of the skewness of the measured re-
sponse, equal to -0.0418, and following the correla-
tion of Figure 9, C was estimated as -6.83e-6.
 250 4

200
3

150
2

Acceleration (m/sec )
2
100

1
Force (N)

50

0 0

-50
-1
-100

-2
-150

-200 -3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Figure 10. External force applied at node 4. Figure 12. Acceleration computed at node 6 of the model.

-3
3 x 10
1.5

2 1
Acceleration (m/sec )
2

1
Displacement (m)

0.5

0 0

-1 -0.5

-2 -1

-3 -1.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Figure 11. Acceleration measured at node 6 of the test beam. Figure 13. Displacement computed at node 6 of the model.

Then the displacement and the acceleration time

histories of the node no. 6 of the model have been 1400

calculated by direct integration of the equations of

motion, using the HHT algorithm (Hughes, 1987). 1200

The results of the numerical analysis are pre-

1000
sented in Figure 12 and in Figure 13. The first one
distribution PDF

shows the time history of the displacement at the

800
node no. 6, while the second one reports the corre-
sponding acceleration. 600
The numerical results were then submitted to sta-
tistical analysis and the distribution of the accelera- 400
tion was computed.
Figure 14 and Figure 15 show the distribution of 200
the displacement and the acceleration of the node no.
6 of the model computed by the FE method. With 0
-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
the solid line are indicated the normal distributions Displacement (m) x 10
-3

which best fit the actual distributions.

Figure 14. Displacement probability density function computed
For control purposes the skewness of the com- at node 6 of the model for 49.26 N RMS external force.
puted response in term of acceleration was also
computed and is indicated in Figure 15.
The obtained value, equal to -0.0431, is very
close to the skewness calculated for the experimental
 1 tests. The mechanical properties of the non-linear
0.9
Skewness = -0.0431
0.8
0.7
distribution PDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
Acceleration (m/sec 2)
Figure 15. Acceleration probability density function computed
at node 6 of the model for 49.26 N RMS external force.
data (-0.0418) and used to set the proper value of C
in the model set up for representing the behaviour of
the breathing cracks. This control confirms the ef-
fectiveness of the model in simulating the dynamic
behaviour of a damaged beam.
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Cracked concrete beams exhibit a non linear behav-
iour that depends on the severity of cracking and on
the level of the external excitation.
In the present paper non linear effects have been
studied observing the statistical properties of re-
sponse under a white noise random loading. The
skewness of the measured response was used as in-
dicator of the non linearity.
The realization of several experimental tests al-
lowed for detecting two main aspects of the response
of cracked RC elements. First of all the experimental
tests executed with different RMS values of the ex-
ternal load showed that the structural non-linearity
increases with the level of the external excitation.
Moreover, it has been noted that the non linearity
of RC beams tends initially to increase as the crack
pattern gets more severe. Afterwards, it tends to de-
crease as the cracks further widen and deepen and
can no longer close under the dynamic excitation.
On the basis of these observations a new damage
detection method based on the statistical analysis of
the dynamic response of the structure loaded by a
white noise excitation has been introduced. It re-
quires no information about the dynamic behaviour
of the undamaged structure, which can be consid-
ered to behave linearly by definition. Moreover the
method proved to be practically insensitive to the
temperature variations.
A numerical model of the behaviour of the cracks
that breathe during the dynamic response was also
established and used to simulate the experimental
elements that represent the cracked RC zones have
been obtained from the comparison between ex-
perimental data and numerical simulations.
ACKNOLEDGMENTS
The Authors gratefully acknowledge the invalu-
able support given by Eng. Paolo Manni during the
experimental work and by the Firm Generale Pre-
fabbricati S.p.A of Perugia (Italy) which manufac-
tured the beams used for the tests.
REFERENCES
Breccolotti, M., Materazzi, A.L. 2004. A new damage index
for the assessment of reinforced concrete structures through
vibration based techniques. Acoustical and Vibratory Sur-
veillance Methods and Diagnostic Techniques; Proceedings
5th International Conference. Senlis, France, October 11-12,
2004.
Cacciola, P., Impollonia, N., Muscolino, G. 2003. Crack detec-
tion and location in a damaged beam vibrating under white
noise. Computer and Structures, Vol. 81: 1773-1782.
Cacciola, P., Muscolino, G. 2002. Dynamic response of a rec-
tangular beam with a known non-propagating crack of cer-
tain or uncertain depth. Computer and Structures, Vol. 80:
2387-2396.
Hughes, T.J.R. 1987. The Finite Element Method, Prentice-
Hall, Englewodd Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Kim, J.T., Stubbs, N. 2003. Crack detection in beam-type
structures using frequency data. Journal of Sound and Vi-
bration Vol. 259: 145-160.
Lin, H.P., Chang, S.C., Wu, J.D. 2002. Beam vibrations with
an arbitrary numbers of cracks. Journal of Sound and Vi-
bration Vol. 258: 987-999.
Maeck, J., Abdel Wahab, M., Peeters, B., De Roeck, De Viss-
cher, J., De Wilde, W.P., Ndambi, J.-M., Vantomme, J.
2000. Damage identification in reinforced concrete struc-
tures by dynamic stiffness determination. Engineering
Structures Vol. 22: 1339-1349.
Neild, S.A., McFadden, P.D., Williams, M.S. 2003. A review
of time-frequency methods for structural vibration analysis.
Engineering Structures Vol. 25: 713-728.
Neild, S.A., McFadden, P.D., Williams, M.S. 2003. Nonlinear
vibration characteristic of damaged concrete beams. Jour-
nal of Structural Engineering Vol. 129: 260-268.
Owen, J.S., Eccles, B.J., Choo, B.S., Woodings, M.A. 2001.
The application of auto-regressive time series modelling for
the time-frequency analysis of civil engineering structures.
Engineering Structures Vol. 23: 521-536.
Patil, D.P., Maiti, S.K. 2003. Detection of multiple cracks us-
ing frequency measurements. Engineering Fracture Me-
chanics Vol. 70: 1553-1572.
Saavedra, P.N., Cuitio, L.A. 2001. Crack detection and vibra-
tion behaviour of cracked beams. Computer and Structures
Vol. 79: 1451-1459.
Petryna, Y.S., Krtzig, W.B. 2005. Compliance-based struc-
tural damage measure and its sensitivity to uncertainties.
Computer and Structures Vol. 83: 1113-1133.
Shinozuka, M., Jan, C.M. 1972. Digital simulation of random
processes and its application. Journal of Sound and Vibra-
tion, Vol. 25: 111-128.