• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.123-134
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• 2013

Identifying structural modal parameters, especially those modes within high frequency range, from ambient data is still a challenging problem due to various kinds of uncertainty involved in vibration measurements. A procedure applying an ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method is proposed for accurate and robust structural modal identification. In the proposed method, the EEMD process is first implemented to decompose the original ambient data to a set of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), which are zero-mean time series with energy in narrow frequency bands. Subsequently, a Sub-PolyMAX method is performed in narrow frequency bands by using IMFs as primary data for structural modal identification. The merit of the proposed method is that it performs structural identification in narrow frequency bands (take IMFs as primary data), unlike the traditional method in the whole frequency space (take original measurements as primary data), thus it produces more accurate identification results. A numerical example and a multiple-span continuous steel bridge have been investigated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.355-363
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• 2023

In safety assessment of a aged bridge, dynamic characteristics and displacement are directly related to the rigidity of the structural system, especially displacement is the most important factor as the physical quantity that the bridge user can directly detect. However, in order to measure the displacement of the bridge, it is difficult to install displacement sensors at the bottom of the bridge and conduct traffic blocking and loading tests, resulting in increased costs or impossible measurements depending on the bridge's environment. In this study, a method of measuring the displacement of a bridge using only accelerometers without installing displacement sensors and ambient vibration without a loading test was proposed. For the analysis of bridge dynamic characteristics and displacement using ambient vibration, the mode shape and natural frequency of the bridge were extracted using a TDD technique known to enable quick analysis with simple calculations, and the unit load displacement of the bridge was analyzed through flexibility analysis to calculate static displacement. To verify this proposed technology, an on-site test was conducted on C Bridge, and the results were compared with the measured values of the loading test and the structural analysis data. As a result, it was confirmed that the mode shape and natural frequency were 0.42 to 1.13 % error ratio, and the maximum displacement at the main span was 3.58 % error ratio. Therefore, the proposed technology can be used as a basis data for indirectly determine the safety of the bridge by comparing the amount of displacement compared to the design and analysis values by estimating the displacement of the bridge that could not be measured due to the difficulty of installing displacement sensors.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5A
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• pp.641-647
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• 2008

This paper introduces a new technique that can extract natural frequencies and damping ratios from output-only vibration data. Firstly, the free vibration data is obtained from the cross correlations of the output-only response data using a singular value decomposition process. Secondly, the well-known system identification algorithm is applied to extract the natural frequencies and damping ratios from the extracted free vibration data. Comparing to ERADC technique, the accuracy of the proposed modal parameter identification algorithm has been numerically examined. Furthermore, the practicability of the proposed algorithm has been examined through the output-only acceleration data collected from the Seohae cable-stayed bridge. Using the proposed technique, total 24 modes have been identified for the deck plate motions of the bridge.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.147-152
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• 2007

Numerous non-destructive tests(NDT) to assess the safety of real structures have been developed. System identification(SI) techniques using dynamic responses and behaviors of structural systems become an outstanding issue of researchers. However the conventional SI techniques are identified to be non-practical to the complex and tall buildings, due to limitation of the availability of an accurate data that is magnitude or location of external loads. In most SI approaches, the information on input loading and output responses must be known. In many cases, measuring the input information may take most of the resources, and it is very difficult to accurately measure the input information during actual vibrations of practical importance, e.g., earthquakes, winds, micro seismic tremors, and mechanical vibration. However, the desirability and application potential of SI to real structures could be highly improved if an algorithm is available that can estimate structural parameters based on the response data alone without the input information. Thus a technique to estimate structural properties of building without input measurement data and using limited response is essential in structural health monitoring. In this study, shaking table tests on three-story plane frame steel structures were performed. Out-put only model analysis on the measured data was performed, and the dynamic properties were inverse analyzed using least square method in time domain. In results damage detection was performed in each member level, which was performed at story level in conventional SI techniques of frequency domain.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.209-230
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• 2016

The Canton Tower is a high-rise slender structure with a height of 610 m. A structural health monitoring system has been instrumented on the structure, by which data is continuously monitored. This paper presents an investigation on the identified modal properties of the Canton Tower using ambient vibration data collected during a whole day (24 hours). A recently developed Fast Bayesian FFT method is utilized for operational modal analysis on the basis of the measured acceleration data. The approach views modal identification as an inference problem where probability is used as a measure for the relative plausibility of outcomes given a model of the structure and measured data. Focusing on the first several modes, the modal properties of this supertall slender structure are identified on non-overlapping time windows during the whole day under normal wind speed. With the identified modal parameters and the associated posterior uncertainty, the distribution of the modal parameters in the future is predicted and assessed. By defining the modal root-mean-square value in terms of the power spectral density of modal force identified, the identified natural frequencies and damping ratios versus the vibration amplitude are investigated with the associated posterior uncertainty considered. Meanwhile, the correlations between modal parameters and temperature, modal parameters and wind speed are studied. For comparison purpose, the frequency domain decomposition (FDD) method is also utilized to identify the modal parameters. The identified results obtained by the Bayesian method, the FDD method and a finite element model are compared and discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.61-68
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• 2008

A set of modal parameters of a stay-cable have been extracted from a moving picture captured by a digital camera supported by shaking hands. It is hard to identify the center of targets attached on the cable surface from the blurred cable motion image, because of the high speed motion of cable, low sampling frequency of camera, and the shaking effect of camera. This study proposes a multi-template matching algorithm to resolve such difficulties. In addition, a sensitivity-based system identification algorithm is introduced to extract the natural frequencies and damping ratios from the ambient cable vibration data. Three sets of vibration tests are conducted to examine the validity of the proposed algorithms. The results show that the proposed technique is pretty feasible for extracting modal parameters from the severely shaking motion pictures.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1229-1236
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• 2008

A set of modal parameters of a stay-cable have been extracted fi:on a moving picture captured by a digital camera supported by shaking hands. It is hard to identify the center of targets attached on the cable surface from the blurred cable motion image, because of the high speed motion of cable, low sampling frequency of camera, and the shaking effect of camera. This study proposes a multi-template matching algorithm to resolve such difficulties. In addition, a sensitivity-based system identification algorithm is introduced to extract the natural frequencies and damping ratios from the ambient cable vibration data. Three sets of vibration tests are conducted to examine the validity of the proposed algorithms. The results show that the proposed technique is pretty feasible for extracting modal parameters from the severely shaking motion pictures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.281-298
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• 2007

The load carrying capacity of a bridge needs to be properly assessed to operate the bridge safely and maintain it efficiently. For the evaluation of load carrying capacity considering the current state of a bridge, static and quasi-static loading tests with weight-controlled heavy trucks have been conventionally utilized. In these tests, the deflection (or strain) of the structural members loaded by the controlled vehicles are measured and analyzed. Using the measured data, deflection (or strain) correction factor and impact correction factor are calculated. These correction factors are used in the enhancement of the load carrying capacity of a bridge, reflecting the real state of a bridge. However, full or partial control of the traffic during the tests and difficulties during the installment of displacement transducers or strain gauges may cause not only inconvenience to the traffic but also the increase of the logistics cost and time. To overcome these difficulties, an alternative method is proposed using an excited response part of full measured ambient acceleration data by ordinary traffic on a bridge without traffic control. Based on the modal properties extracted from the ambient vibration data, the initial finite element (FE) model of a bridge can be updated to represent the current real state of a bridge. Using the updated FE model, the deflection of a bridge akin to the real value can be easily obtained without measuring the real deflection. Impact factors are obtained from pseudo-deflection, which is obtained by double-integration of the acceleration data with removal of the linear components on the acceleration data. For validation, a series of tests were carried out on a steel plategirder bridge of an expressway in Korea in four different seasons, and the evaluated load carrying capacities of the bridge by the proposed method are compared with the result obtained by the conventional load test method.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.129-136
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• 2005

The vehicle loading test under the strict traffic control is generally carried out as a present practice in an evaluation process of the bearing capacity of a bridge. The quasi-static load test is recently proposed to mitigate the traffic condition of test, and analyze the disturbed acceleration time-history data of free vibration due to the ambient traffic on the bridge by Fourier transform to calculate only the natural frequencies of the bridge. The calculated frequencies have some errors due to the analysis technique as well as the influence of ambient traffic loads, and in addition to it is cumbersome to obtain the free vibration data during a quasi-static load test. In this study, the wavelet transform technique using Morlet wavelet is used to analyze the acceleration data recorded during a quasi-static load test on a bridge and calculate the natural frequencies and the modal damping ratios of the bridge. The study results show that the wavelet transform technique is a reliable and reasonable method to analyze test data and obtain the natural frequencies and the modal damping ratios of a bridge regardless of the data types i.e. free or forced vibrations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.523-539
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• 2016

The ambient vibration measurement is an output-data-only dynamic testing where natural excitations are represented, for instance, by winds and typhoons. The modal identification involving output-only measurements requires the use of specific modal identification techniques. This paper presents the application of a reliable method (the Stochastic Subspace Identification - SSI) implemented in a general purpose software. As a criterion toward the robustness of identified modes, a bio-inspired optimization algorithm, with a highly nonlinear objective function, is introduced in order to find the optimal deployment of a reduced number of sensors across a large civil engineering structure for the validation of its modal identification. The Ting Kau Bridge (TKB), one of the longest cable-stayed bridges situated in Hong Kong, is chosen as a case study. The results show that the proposed method catches eigenvalues and eigenvectors even for a reduced number of sensors, without any significant loss of accuracy.