A theoretical study of the identification of multiple cracks in an elastic medium based on optimization methods using harmonic elastic waves is presented in the paper. A general interacting crack model is first used to determine the dynamic interaction between arbitrarily located and oriented cracks subjected to plane harmonic waves. The solution of this problem is then implemented into an optimization process for the identification of unknown cracks from known strain components at discrete locations. An optimization scheme based on sensitivity analysis is used to determine the length, the orientation and the position of cracks. Numerical simulation indicates that the sensitivity analysis and the optimization method used are effective in identifying multiple cracks. It is observed that convergent results can be achieved from a set of arbitrarily determined initial values of the crack parameters. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the determination of the length, orientation, and position of different interacting cracks.
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