In this paper, a new damage indicator based on mode shape data is introduced to identify damage in beam structures. In order to construct the indicator proposed, the mode shape, mode shape slope and mode shape curvature of a beam before and after damage are utilized. Mode shape data of the beam are first obtained here using a finite element modeling and then the slope and curvature of mode shape are evaluated via the central finite difference method. In order to assess the robustness of the proposed indicator, two test examples including a simply supported beam and a two-span beam are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that using the proposed indicator, the location of single and multiple damage cases having different characteristics can be accurately determined. Moreover, the indicator shows a better performance when compared with a well-known indicator found in the literature.
