Intelligent hybrid fuzzy logic system for damage detection of beam-like structural elements

Fuzzy logic has been used in different research fields for more than three decades. It has be-
come a robust method to solve complex and intricate problems which are otherwise difficult
to solve by traditional methods. But it still requires some human experience and knowledge.
In the present study, an attempt is made to design a hybrid optimization technique for au-
tomatic formation of the fuzzy knowledge based rules using an evolutionary algorithm. This
hybridization technique has been applied in the field of damage detection and location of
cracks in cracked structural elements. In this paper, a robust fault diagnostic tool based on
a differential evolution algorithm and fuzzy logic has been proposed. Theoretical and Finite
Element analyzes are done to model the crack and to find the effect of the presence of cracks
on changes of vibrational characteristic (natural frequencies) of a fixed-fixed beam. The in-
puts to DEA-FL system are the first three relative natural frequencies, and the outputs from
the system are the relative crack depth and relative crack location. For the validation of the
results obtained from the proposed method and to check the robustness of the controller,
experimental analysis is performed. To find average error rates, the bootstrap method has
been adopted.