Reinforced concrete beams are commonly designed to satisfy criteria of serviceability and safety. This study focuses on confirming the location of multiple-crack damage in an RC beam model using commercial Finite Element analysis software. Linear, nonlinear and eigen analyses were performed to get the natural frequencies and mode shapes. Finite Element models were constructed based on simply supported beams with one control and one test beam with multiple cracks. For the control beam, linear and eigen analyses were performed in order to get the eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Nonlinear analysis was performed for the beam with multiple cracks. The natural frequencies were transformed and applied into the fourth order centered finite divided difference formula. The values of | λ4 |, referred to as the Local Stiffness Indicator, were then plotted to confirm the locations of damage. The use of the proposed model to identify the various effects of multiple cracks on the local and global response of an RC beam was seen to be successful. © 2008 by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Department of Mechanical Engineering All rights reserved.