Abstract: The paper presents a new method to detect damages in beams and assess their location and severity by means of vibration measurements. Typically, changes in natural frequency of beams are relatively small, even for an important reduction of their cross-section; this is one of the major difficulties in locating damages in this way. Our research takes into account the particular manner in which the natural frequencies of the first ten bending modes change due to the occurrence of damage. It is a pattern recognition problem, the measured frequency changes being compared with values contained in a database, determined using the FEM. By comparing the shift in frequency obtained through measurements with those determined using the FEM it was possible to locate damages and estimate their geometry with high accuracy, which leads to the conclusion that the method can be successfully used. The method was validated by experiments.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Gilbert-Rainer GILLICH, born on 29.01.1962 in Resita, Romania, graduated the Faculty of Mechanics of the "Politehnica" University Timisoara (1986) where he obtained also his PhD (1999). During of twenty-four years he gained expertise as engineer at the Steel Factory of Resita ad teaching staff at the "Eftimie Murgu" University of Resita where he is now professor of Vibrations and Machine dynamics and in the meantime Vice-Rector for Education. He acted as invited professor at the Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz -Germany, since 2002 and the Universita degli Studi di Sassari - Italy, since 2006. His research is focused on damage detection and structural health monitoring, as well as on base isolation and aseismic protection. He is member of several scientific or professional associations, like: The International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), European Acoustics Association (EAA), European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP), Balkan Environmental Association (B.EN.A.), The General Association of Engineers in Romania (AGIR), Romanian Acoustic Society (SRA), Romanian Association of Tensometry (ARTENS), Romanian Association of Electronic Industry and Software (ARIES), Robotics Society of Romania (SRR). He was involved, as director or researcher, in 17 finalized national and international founded research projects, publishing 5 books and more than 80 articles in relevant journals and conferences and 2 patents.