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This paper discusses a new method for damage detection based on themost fundamental concept in continuum mechanics: strain compatibility. Compliancewith this principle implies a deformed material is free from discontinuities, which areindicative of many types of structural damage. Therefore the principle of straincompatibility, in its ability to identify discontinuities, is very promising as a newfoundation for future research into non-destructive evaluation and structural healthmonitoring technologies. The proposed method has many advantages compared toexisting damage detection techniques, such as its invariance to material properties andthe geometry of the structure. To illustrate the application of this technique, thedetection of damage in beam structures is investigated. The formulation of the straincompatibility equation for beam structures is introduced and numerical simulationscarried out to detect crack and delamination damage in a cantilever beam. Thesimulations demonstrate that the strain compatibility technique shows high potential forlocating and quantifying the severity of damage in beam structures.