A Modified Particle Swarm Optimization Technique for Crack Detection in Cantilever Beams

Abstract

An inverse analysis of the crack identification problem is investigated by the modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) technique. The objective of the present analysis is to predict the unknown crack location and its depth from the knowledge of frequency data obtained from theoretical and experimental investigation. In this paper, the proposed modified PSO (MPSO) mechanism employs the strategy of squeezing the physical domain of the search space in each iteration to accelerate the search process while maintaining the inherent structure of PSO algorithm. Analytical and experimental results of the cracked beam structure are compared with those obtained by modified PSO (MPSO) to ensure the integrity of the algorithm. To show its effectiveness, the results of the MPSO are compared with the results obtained by differential evolution. Simulation results reveal the better performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of predicting the location and depth of the crack.