Applicability of an output-only structural damage detection based on transmissibility measurements and kernel principal component analysis

Frequency response functions have been employed as damage-sensitive features in the vibration-based structural damage detection. The need for measuring the excitation forces arises as a remarkable limitation on the application of those features in real-world applications. Transmissibility measurements can be explored as features with output-only nature, which imply the need for measuring only the response signals. Thus, an output-only damage detection method is proposed, combining transmissibilities with kernel principal component analysis. The results performed on transmissibility measurements from a laboratory steel beam reveals that the output-only method has high potential to be applied in a wide range of monitoring solutions.