Modal analysis of a cantilever beam by use of the slope-assisted BOTDA method for damage identification

We report an experimental study on a cantilever beam, aimed to verify the feasibility of modal analysis by distributed Brillouin sensing for structural damage identification. Damage identification was carried out for three defect cases, analyzing the changes of the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the first two bending modes. Comparison with finite element method (FEM) analysis shows that the damage can be detected and localized, within the limitation dictated by the spatial resolution (30 cm) of our sensor.