Data Fusion-Based Structural Damage Identification Approach Integrating Fractal and RCPN

Abstract

In order to improve the identification accuracy of damage detection and evaluation based on the vibration response, this paper presents a structural damage identification method based on the fractal dimension, data fusion and a revised counter-propagation network (RCPN). Firstly, the fractal dimensions of the original signal response are extracted through data preprocessing. Secondly, the first-time fusion of data (i.e., the feature-level fusion) is carried out, after which these data are used as the input for the RCPN, to identify and decide the initial damage. Finally, the second-time data fusion (i.e., based on the decision results of the feature-level fusion) is carried out, leading to decision-level fusion. In order to verify the validity of the proposed method, a four-storey benchmark structure of ASCE is used for damage identification and comparison, using a single RCPN decision and the data fusion damage identification method, respectively. The results show that the proposed method is more accurate and reliable than the results of single RCPN decision and feature-level fusion decision, and has good noise resistance and robustness.