A two-step method is proposed to solve structural damage identification problem. First

the improved residual vector is used to locate the general damage range

and then used Tree-seed algorithm (TSA) is used to identify damage extents based on objective function related to damage structures. TSA is a heuristic algorithm with simple structure and easy to implement. In order to make it more powerful

two kinds of search modes and a self-adaptive judge factor are utilized to realize algorithms search. A beam and a plate are employed as numerical simulations. Studies show that the present techniques can produce more accurate damage identification results

comparing with other algorithms

even with a little noise contaminated measurements.