• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.179-197
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• 2012

This study presents the findings of the structural health monitoring and the real time system identification of one of the first large scale building instrumentations in Turkey for earthquake safety. Within this context, a thorough review of steps in the instrumentation, monitoring is presented and seismic performance evaluation of structures using both nonlinear pushover and nonlinear dynamic time history analysis is carried out. The sensor locations are determined using the optimal sensor placement techniques used in NASA for on orbit modal identification of large space structures. System identification is carried out via the stochastic subspace technique. The results of the study show that under ambient vibrations, stocky buildings can be substantially stiffer than what is predicted by the finite element models due to the presence of a large number of partitioning walls. However, in a severe earthquake, it will not be safe to rely on this resistance due to the fact that once the partitioning walls crack, the bare frame contributes to the lateral stiffness of the building alone. Consequently, the periods obtained from system identification will be closer to those obtained from the FE analysis. A technique to control the validity of the proportional damping assumption is employed that checks the presence of phase difference in displacements of different stories obtained from band pass filtered records and it is confirmed that the "proportional damping assumption" is valid for this structure. Two different techniques are implemented for identifying the influence of the soil structure interaction. The first technique uses the transfer function between the roof and the basement in both directions. The second technique uses a pre-whitening filter on the data obtained from both the basement and the roof. Subsequently the impulse response function is computed from the scaled cross correlation between the input and the output. The overall results showed that the structure will satisfy the life safety performance level in a future earthquake but some soil structure interaction effects should be expected in the North South direction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.162-169
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• 1998

This paper presents the application of system identification approaches for the safety assessment of RC-T type bridge based on the result of field test. For these problems, the moment of inertia of cross-sectional area and the natural frequency of bridge were used as structural parameters, the SAP90 program for the structural analysis and the SLP method for the minimum error. As a result, it is found that the proposed algorithm for this study appears applicable to real structures with reasonable complexity. It is shown that the introduction of approximate quadratic equations is more realistic and timesaving than the common methods.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 1997

Mechanical structures are composed of substructures connected by joints and boundary elements. While the finite element representation of plain substructures is well developed and reliable, joints have a lot of uncertainties in being accurately modelled and affect dynamic behavior of a total system. In order to improve the accuracy of a finite element model, a new method is proposed, in which reduced finite element model is combined with a system identification technique. After substructures except joints are modelled with finite element method and joint properties are represented by parameter states, non-linear state equation is derived in which parameter states are multiplied by physical states such as displacements and velocities. So the joint parameter identification is transformed into non-linear state estimation problem. The methods are tested and discussed numerically and the feasibility for physical application has been demonstrated through two example structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2006

Recently, the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) has gained considerable attention as a novel technique of signal processing, which shows promise for the system identification and damage detection of structures. This study investigates the effectiveness and accuracy of the HHT method for the system identification and damage detection of structures through a series of experiments. A multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structural model has been constructed with modular members, and the columns of the model can be replaced or removed to simulate damages at different locations with different severities. The measured response data of the structure due to an impulse loading is first decomposed into modal responses using the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) approach with a band-pass filter technique. Then, the Hilbert transform is subsequently applied to each modal response to obtain the instantaneous amplitude and phase angle time histories. A linear least-square fit procedure is used to identify the natural frequencies and damping ratios from the instantaneous amplitude and phase angle for each modal response. When the responses at all degrees of freedom are measured, the mode shape and the physical mass, damping and stiffness matrices of the structure can be determined. Based on a comparison of the stiffness of each story unit prior to and after the damage, the damage locations and severities can be identified. Experimental results demonstrate that the HHT method yields quite accurate results for engineering applications, providing a promising tool for structural health monitoring.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.241-258
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• 2008

This paper presents a new identification approach to prestress force. Firstly, a bridge deck is modeled as a prestressed Timoshenko beam. The time domain responses of the beam under sinusoidal excitation are studied based on modal superposition. The prestress force is then identified in the time domain by a system identification approach incorporating with the regularization of the solution. The orthogonal polynomial function is used to improve the noise effect and obtain the derivatives of modal responses of the bridge. Good identification results are obtained from only the first few measured modal data under both sinusoidal and impulsive excitations. It is shown that the proposed method is insensitive to the magnitude of force to be identified and can be successfully applied to indirectly identify the prestress force as well as other physical parameters, such as the flexural rigidity and shearing rigidity of a beam even under noisy environment.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2015

While most of researches on system identification of building structures are aimed at finding modal parameters first and identifying the corresponding physical parameters by using the transformation in terms of transfer functions and cross spectra, etc., direct physical parameter system identification methods have been proposed recently. Due to the problem of signal/noise (SN) ratios, the previous methods are restricted mostly to earthquake records or forced vibration data. In this paper, a theoretical investigation is performed on the influence of wind disturbances on stiffness identification of building structures using micro-tremor at limited floors. It is concluded that the influence of wind disturbances on stiffness identification of building structures using micro-tremor at limited floors is restricted in case of using time-series data for low-rise buildings and does not cause serious problems.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2010

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.457-468
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• 2009

A novel approach for integrating active sensing data interrogation algorithms for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications is presented. These algorithms cover Lamb wave propagation, impedance methods, and sensor diagnostics. Contrary to most active-sensing SHM techniques, which utilize only a single signal processing method for damage identification, a suite of signal processing algorithms are employed and grouped into one package to improve the damage detection capability. A MATLAB-based user interface, referred to as HOPS, was created, which allows the analyst to configure the data acquisition system and display the results from each damage identification algorithm for side-by-side comparison. By grouping a suite of algorithms into one package, this study contributes to and enhances the visibility and interpretation of the active-sensing methods related to damage identification. This paper will discuss the detailed descriptions of the damage identification techniques employed in this software and outline future issues to realize the full potential of this software.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.201-215
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• 2024

Spline chirplet transform and local maximum synchrosqueezing are introduced to present a novel structural instantaneous frequency (IF) identification method named local maximum synchrosqueezing spline chirplet transform (LMSSSCT). Namely spline chirplet transform (SCT), a transform is firstly introduced based on classic chirplet transform and spline interpolated kernel function. Applying SCT in association with local maximum synchrosqueezing, the LMSSSCT is then proposed. The index of accuracy and Rényi entropy show that LMSSSCT outperforms the other time-frequency analysis (TFA) methods in processing analytical signals, especially in the presence of noise. Numerical examples of a Duffing nonlinear system with single degree of freedom and a two-layer shear frame structure with time-varying stiffness are used to verify the effectiveness of structural IF identification. Moreover, a nonlinear supported beam structure test is conducted and the LMSSSCT is utilized for structural IF identification. Numerical simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the presented LMSSSCT can effectively identify the IFs of nonlinear structures and time-varying structures with good accuracy and stability.