Abstract Structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures is a fundamental issue for structural safety and integrity, due to the fact that they will deteriorate after they are built and put into services. Within which, damage identification will be the most important problem. In this paper, a structural damage identification method based on particle filters, will therefore be introduced. The algorithm of the particle filter will be studied. The application of the proposed method to a lumped-mass shear frame structure will be made. The parameters of the stiffness and damping of each floor will be identified using the particle filters and analyzed. Parameters of the particle filter will be studied and their effect to the identification results will also be analyzed. Simulation of a single degree and multi-degree structure will be conduct to verify the effectiveness of the particle filter identification method. For each case, damage is deliberately introduced into the numerical model. Response signals will be collected and analyzed. Final identification results show that the proposed method can do the work very well and could be a promising approach for real applications.