The probabilistic damage identification problem with uncertainty in the FE model
parameters, external-excitations and measured acceleration responses is studied. The uncertainty
in the system is concerned with normally distributed random variables with zero mean value and
given covariance. Based on the theoretical model and the measured acceleration responses, the
probabilistic structuralmodels in undamaged and damaged states are obtained by two-stage model
updating, and then the Probabilities of Damage Existence (PDE) of each element are calculated
as the damage criterion. The influences of the location of sensors on the damage identification
results are also discussed, where one of the optimal sensor placement techniques, the effective
independence method, is used to choose the nodes for measurement. The damage identification
results by different numbers of measured nodes and different damage criterions are compared in
the numerical example.