An improved method based on D-S evidence theory and its verification in damage location for guide wall structure

Due to some deficiencies in the combination rule of D-S evidence theory,some dynamic signatures for damage location are determined according to the vibration characteristics of guide wall structure induced by flood discharge. The responses measured from health state and damage state are utilized to respectively calculate these dynamic signatures,which are applied to preliminary judgment of damage location. And the identification results are regarded as evidences for fusion decision to decide the damage location by using the improved D-S evidence theory. The results demonstrate that the accurate decision can be obtained based on few evidences by utilizing the method proposed,the errors originated from sensor and noise are avoided,and the influence on final fusion decision of the wrong evidence is effectively reduced. The method based on dynamic signatures and improved D-S evidence theory is applicable to damage localization.