Damage Identification in Reinforced Concrete Beams Using Wavelet Transform of Modal Excitation Responses

This study focuses on identifying damage in reinforced concrete (RC) beams using time-domain modal testing and wavelet analysis. A numerical model of an RC beam was used to generate various scenarios with different severities locations. Acceleration time histories were recorded for both damaged undamaged structures. Two indices, DI_MW DI_SW, derived from the analysis, employed determine location severity damage. The results showed that families specific mother wavelets had varying effectiveness detecting Daubechies family (db2, db6, db9) detected at center sides due good frequency localization. Biorthogonal (bior2.8 bior3.1) provided improved time–frequency resolution. Symlets (sym2 sym7) offered a balanced trade-off between Shannon (shan1-0.5 shan1-0.1) exhibited localization, while Frequency B-Spline (fbsp2-1-0.1) excelled Certain combinations wavelets, such as shan1-0.5 DI_SW index, highly effective index outperformed across models. Selecting appropriate analysis techniques, particularly utilizing proved beams.