PARAMETRIC IDENTIFICATION OF TRUSS STRUCTURES BY USING TRANSIENT RESPONSE

A method for identifying the element rigidities of a truss is developed. The transient response of the truss is transformed into the frequency domain for use in the identification process. The spectral finite element method is employed to formulate the equilibrium equation of the truss in the frequency domain. The identification problem is then formulated as an optimization program in which the error norm of the equilibrium equation is minimized. The issue of identifiability is addressed. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed method. It is shown the element properties can be obtained successfully. The influence of noise is investigated through an example. © 1996 Academic Press Limited.