Efficient Structural System Reliability Updating with Subspace-Based Damage Detection Information

Damage detection systems and algorithms (DDS and DDA) provide information of the structural system integrity in contrast to e.g. local information by inspections or non-destructive testing techniques. However, the potential of utilizing DDS information for the structural integrity assessment and prognosis is hardly exploited nor treated in scientific literature up to now.

In order to utilize the information provided by DDS for the structural performance, usually high computational efforts for the pre-determination of DDS reliability are required. In this paper, an approach for the DDS performance modelling is introduced building upon the non-destructive testing reliability which applies to structural systems and DDS containing a strategy to overcome the high computational efforts for the pre-determination of the DDS reliability.

This approach takes basis in the subspace-based damage detection method and builds upon mathematical properties of the damage detection algorithm. Computational efficiency is gained by calculating the probability of damage indication directly without necessitating a pre-determination for all damage states.

The developed approach is applied to a static, dynamic, deterioration and reliability structural system model, demonstrating the potentials for utilizing DDS for risk reduction