Experimental study on initial damage identification technology based on improved empirical Fourier decomposition proposed, the structural vibration response is first decomposed into components using the improved empirical Fourier decomposition technique. Then, the modal vibration mode values and their energy values of the measurement points are obtained. Finally, the current service state of the structure is determined based on the difference in energy values between the healthy state and different damage conditions, achieving the goal of identifying damage to the structure. The proposed method utilizes the characteristic that structural damage can cause changes in the structural vibration mode, and identifies damage based on the principle that the energy of the vibration mode also changes accordingly. In addition, this method can also use only a single measurement point for damage identification, which greatly reduces the cost of data collection and the size of the dataset. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method was verified through slope beam tests and stand simulator tests.