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Abstract: In the present paper, a comparison is made between the Coupled Local Minimizers (CLM) method and the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm to perform FE model updating for the damage detection in a cracked beam. CLM method is a gradient-based method with multiple local optimization runs. DE algorithm is a direct search approach which uses a population of solution vectors collecting the design parameters. Two benchmark examples of damage assessment are considered, i.e., beams under flexural vibrations with one crack and two cracks, with unknown position and depth. The effectiveness of the two methods to obtain the set of unknown parameters has been verified by performing a number of optimization processes starting from initial values of parameters selected randomly. Both exact and pseudo-experimental input data are used. A statistical analysis of the optimization results is presented. Both methods give results much better than the classical gradient optimization method. Better performances in term of speed rate and precision have been obtained by CLM when the number of identified parameters is limited. On the other hand, DE shows good efficiency when the number of parameters increases or in the case of pseudo-experimental input data. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]