Abstract: Based on the dynamic response caused by moving vehicles， a recurrence quantification analysis-based structural damage detection method is proposed. The acceleration response is split into several segments using a moving window. The recurrence plots are constructed to analyze and present the characteristics of each segmented response signal. The recurrence quantification analysis is used to quantify the damages and construct the damage feature. The damage features of each relative position are assem? bled as a vector for the location of the structural damage. The proposed method is validated by numerical simulation with the singledamage and multi-damages. The influence of damage location， vehicle speed， noise and other factors are discussed to illustrate the robustness of the proposed method. Results show that the method is a potential way for structural damage detection under opera? tional condition.