Detection of Damage in Beams Utilising the Principle of Strain Compatibility

This paper discusses a new method for damage detection based on the most fundamental concept in continuum mechanics: strain compatibility. Compliance with this principle implies a deformed material is free from discontinuities, which are indicative of many types of structural damage. Therefore the principle of strain compatibility, in its ability to identify discontinuities, is very promising as a new foundation for future research into non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring technologies. The proposed method has many advantages compared to existing damage detection techniques, such as its invariance to material properties and the geometry of the structure. To illustrate the application of this technique, the detection of damage in beam structures is investigated. The formulation of the strain compatibility equation for beam structures is introduced and numerical simulations carried out to detect crack and delamination damage in a cantilever beam. The simulations demonstrate that the strain compatibility technique shows high potential for locating and quantifying the severity of damage in beam structures.