• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.181-193
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• 2017

An identification method for determination of the parameters of the rheological models of dampers made of viscoelastic material is presented. The models have two, three or four parameters and the model equations of motion contain derivatives of the fractional order. The results of dynamical experiments are approximated using the trigonometric function in the first part of the procedure while the model parameters are determined as the solution to an appropriately defined optimization problem. The particle swarm optimization method is used to solve the optimization problem. The validity and effectiveness of the suggested identification method have been tested using artificial data and a set of real experimental data describing the dynamic behavior of damper and a fluid frequently used in dampers. The influence of a range of excitation frequencies used in experiments on results of identification is also discussed.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.107-127
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• 2022

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been related to damage identification with either operational loads or other environmental loading playing a significant complimentary role in terms of structural safety. In this study, a non-parametric method of time frequency analysis on the measurement is used to address the time-frequency representation for modal parameter estimation and system damage identification of structure. The method employs the wavelet decomposition of dynamic data by using the modified complex Morlet wavelet with variable central frequency (MCMW+VCF). Through detail discussion on the selection of model parameter in wavelet analysis, the method is applied to study the dynamic response of both steel structure and reinforced concrete frame under white noise excitation as well as earthquake excitation from shaking table test. Application of the method to building earthquake response measurement is also examined. It is shown that by using the spectrogram generated from MCMW+VCF method, with suitable selected model parameter, one can clearly identify the time-varying modal frequency of the reinforced concrete structure under earthquake excitation. Discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of the method through field experiments are also presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.25-41
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• 2012

Kriging surrogate model provides explicit functions to represent the relationships between the inputs and outputs of a linear or nonlinear system, which is a desirable advantage for response estimation and parameter identification in structural design and model updating problem. However, little research has been carried out in applying Kriging model to crack identification. In this work, a scheme for crack identification based on a Kriging surrogate model is proposed. A modified rectangular grid (MRG) is introduced to move some sample points lying on the boundary into the internal design region, which will provide more useful information for the construction of Kriging model. The initial Kriging model is then constructed by samples of varying crack parameters (locations and sizes) and their corresponding modal frequencies. For identifying crack parameters, a robust stochastic particle swarm optimization (SPSO) algorithm is used to find the global optimal solution beyond the constructed Kriging model. To improve the accuracy of surrogate model, the finite element (FE) analysis soft ANSYS is employed to deal with the re-meshing problem during surrogate model updating. Specially, a simple method for crack number identification is proposed by finding the maximum probability factor. Finally, numerical simulations and experimental research are performed to assess the effectiveness and noise immunity of this proposed scheme.

• 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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.465-492
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• 2008

Proper pretest planning is a vital component of any successful vibration test on engineering structures. The most important issue in dynamic testing of many engineering structures is arriving at the number and optimal placement of sensors. The sensors must be placed on the structure in such a way that all the important dynamic behaviour of a structural system is captured during the course of the test with sufficient accuracy so that the information can be effectively utilised for structural parameter identification or health monitoring. Several optimal sensor placement (OSP) techniques are proposed in the literature and each of these methods have been evaluated with respect to a specific problem encountered in various engineering disciplines like aerospace, civil, mechanical engineering, etc. In the present work, we propose to perform a detailed characteristic evaluation of some selective popular OSP techniques with respect to their application to practical civil engineering problems. Numerical experiments carried out in the paper on various practical civil engineering structures indicate that effective independence (EFI) method is more consistent when compared to all other sensor placement techniques.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.331-350
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• 2017

Based on the alternative stabilization diagram by varying the time lag parameter in the stochastic subspace identification analysis, this study aims to investigate the measurements from several cases of civil structures for extending the applicability of a recently noticed criterion to ensure stable identification results. Such a criterion demands the time lag parameter to be no less than a critical threshold determined by the ratio of the sampling rate to the fundamental system frequency and is firstly validated for its applications with single measurements from stay cables, bridge decks, and buildings. As for multiple measurements, it is found that the predicted threshold works well for the cases of stay cables and buildings, but makes an evident overestimation for the case of bridge decks. This discrepancy is further explained by the fact that the deck vibrations are induced by multiple excitations independently coming from the passing traffic. The cable vibration signals covering the sensor locations close to both the deck and pylon ends of a cable-stayed bridge provide convincing evidences to testify this important discovery.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.359-371
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• 2019

As part of a structural health monitoring system, the relative geometric relationship between a ship and bridge has been recognized as important for bridge authorities and ship owners to avoid ship-bridge collision. This study proposes a novel computer vision method for the real-time geometric parameter identification of moving ships based on a single shot multibox detector (SSD) by using transfer learning techniques and monocular vision. The identification framework consists of ship detection (coarse scale) and geometric parameter calculation (fine scale) modules. For the ship detection, the SSD, which is a deep learning algorithm, was employed and fine-tuned by ship image samples downloaded from the Internet to obtain the rectangle regions of interest in the coarse scale. Subsequently, for the geometric parameter calculation, an accurate ship contour is created using morphological operations within the saturation channel in hue, saturation, and value color space. Furthermore, a local coordinate system was constructed using projective geometry transformation to calculate the geometric parameters of ships, such as width, length, height, localization, and velocity. The application of the proposed method to in situ video images, obtained from cameras set on the girder of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge above the shipping channel, confirmed the efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.157-178
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• 2013

Output-only modal parameter identification is based on the assumption that external forces on a linear structure are white noise. However, harmonic excitations are also often present in real structural vibrations. In particular, it has been realized that the use of forced acceleration responses without knowledge of external forces can pose a problem in the modal parameter identification, because an external force is imparted to its impulse acceleration response function. This paper provides a three-stage identification procedure as a solution to the problem of harmonic and white noise excitations in the acceleration responses of a linear dynamic system. This procedure combines the uses of the mode indicator function, the complex mode indication function, the enhanced frequency response function, an iterative rational fraction polynomial method and mode shape inspection for the correlation-related functions of the force-embedded acceleration responses. The procedure is verified via numerical simulation of a five-floor shear building and a two-dimensional frame and also applied to ambient vibration data of a large-span roof structure. Results show that the modal parameters of these dynamic systems can be satisfactorily identified under the requirement of wide separation between vibration modes and harmonic excitations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.585-600
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• 2012

This paper presents a Modified Tikhonov Regularization (MTR) method in model updating for damage identification with model errors and measurement noise influences consideration. The identification equation based on sensitivity approach from the dynamic responses is ill-conditioned and is usually solved with regularization method. When the structural system contains model errors and measurement noise, the identified results from Tikhonov Regularization (TR) method often diverge after several iterations. In the MTR method, new side conditions with limits on the identification of physical parameters allow for the presence of model errors and ensure the physical meanings of the identified parameters. Chebyshev polynomial is applied to approximate the acceleration response for moderation of measurement noise. The identified physical parameter can converge to a relative correct direction. A three-dimensional unsymmetrical frame structure with different scenarios is studied to illustrate the proposed method. Results revealed show that the proposed method has superior performance than TR Method when there are both model errors and measurement noise in the structure system.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.1
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• pp.101-114
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• 2020

In this paper, an improved experience-based learning algorithm (EBL), termed as IEBL, is proposed to solve the nonlinear hysteretic parameter identification problem with Bouc-Wen model. A quasi-opposition-based learning mechanism and new updating equations are introduced to improve both the exploration and exploitation abilities of the algorithm. Numerical studies on a single-degree-of-freedom system without/with viscous damping are conducted to investigate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed algorithm. A laboratory test of seven lead-filled steel tube dampers is presented and their hysteretic parameters are also successfully identified with normalized mean square error values less than 2.97%. Both numerical and laboratory results confirm that, in comparison with EBL, CMFOA, SSA, and Jaya, the IEBL is superior in nonlinear hysteretic parameter identification in terms of convergence and accuracy even under measurement noise.