Purpose Fatigue failure is an important criterion to be considered in the design of structures and mechanical components. Catastrophic failure of structures in service conditions can be avoided using adequate techniques to detect and localize fatigue damage. Modal analysis is a tool used in mechanical and structural engineering to estimate dynamic properties and also to monitor the health of structures. If modal analysis is applied periodically to a structure, fatigue damage can be detected and localized and the fatigue life can be extended by means of suitable reinforcement and repairing. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The experimental results corresponding to the fatigue tests carried out on a steel S-275 cantilever beam are presented. Operational modal analysis was applied periodically to the beam in order to study the variation of modal parameters during the tests and the stresses were estimated combining a numerical model and the acceleration modal coordinates measured at discrete points of the structure. The experimental results are compared with those predicted applying the S-N model of Eurocode 3. Findings A methodology that combines a finite element model and the experimental responses of a structure has been applied to estimate the stress time histories of a cantilever beam clamped to a foundation through a steel plate. The estimated stresses have been used to predict the fatigue damage according to the Eurocode 3. Due to the fact that no information of the scatter is provided by this code (EC3), only the number of cycles corresponding to a probability of failure of 5 percent can be predicted. Originality/value The proposed methodology can be applied to real structures in order to know the accumulated fatigue damage in real time.