In case of damage identification using continuous wavelet transform, the damage is identified by sensing the local perturbations in the spatial signal. First, a damage identification algorithm based on continuous wavelet transform is presented in this paper and next the algorithm is verified using a numerical beam model with different simulated damage cases. Multiple location damage cases are studied for damage identification. The effect of using only damaged data (mode shape from damaged beam) is investigated and compared. Another method of simultaneously detecting, locating and quantifying damage in a single graph is to plot the Hoelder exponent along the beam length. At each discrete point (node number) of beam, the Hoelder exponent is estimated and the resulting values are plotted along the length of beam. Any sudden variation of the exponent at a particular region, provide information on possibility of damage and the minimum value of exponent at that region gives the damage severity. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.