Vibration Based Structural Model Updating and Damage Identification

of Bridges
Hua-Peng Chen1*
1
School of Engineering, University of Greenwich, Chatham Maritime, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK.

*Corresponding author: h.chen@gre.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Effective structural model updating and damage identification methods are proposed by using
incomplete measured modal data. The exact relationship between the perturbation of structural parameters
and the modal properties of the tested dynamic structure is given on the base of dynamic perturbation method.
Structural perturbation parameters are properly selected to represent the differences in structural parameters
for structural model updating and damage identification at critical point level. Experimental studies for a la-
boratory tested steel structure model are undertaken to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model updat-
ing technique and to investigate the influence of structural damage on changes of modal parameters. Further-
more, a cable-stayed bridge is adopted for numerical investigations on inverse structural damage
identification. The results from experimental studies and numerical investigations show the applicability of
the proposed method to structural model updating and damage identification.

1 INTRODUCTION merical model by optimisation process which re-

Condition assessment of existing bridge structures
has become a critical issue due to the deterioration
of structural performance and the requirements of
structural safety. Structural health monitoring has
received significant attention in past decades in or-
der to assess the safety and reliability of bridges dur-
ing their service life (Brownjohn and Xia 2000;
Chen and Alani 2013; De Roeck 2003). Structural
damage identification techniques based on vibration
measurements show great promise because they al-
low for quick and global damage detection at a rela-
tively low cost after a severe loading event such as
an earthquake or collision. These techniques rely on
the fact that any change in stiffness caused by dam-
age in a structure leads to a change in modal pa-
rameters of the structure such as natural frequencies
and mode shapes (Chen 2010; Doebling et al. 1996).
Although successful applications of these techniques
have been developed to some extent, vibration based
local damage assessment of bridges remains a chal-
lenge in practice.
In vibration-based structural damage identifica-
tion, a model updating procedure is often needed to
calibrate and update the initial finite element (FE)
model and to provide the baseline for damage identi-
fication. In general, iterative updating methods such
as sensitivity-based approaches are used for updat-
ing FE model of tested structures. The iterative
methods update structural parameters of the FE nu-
quires the eigen-solutions and associated sensitivity
matrices of the numerical model to be calculated in
each iteration (Bakira et al. 2007; Modak et al.
2002). However, the sensitivity analysis used in the
iterative model updating methods may not perform
well, in particular in the cases when discrepancy be-
tween the initial FE numerical model and the actual
tested structure is significant and large modification
of structural parameters is required.
The existing methods for damage identification
using measured vibration modal data include model
updating techniques (Mottershead and Friswell
1993), sensitivity analysis methods (Kosmatka and
Ricles 1999) and dynamic perturbation methods
(Chen 2008; Chen and Bicanic 2010). However,
most of these methods may be unable to provide ac-
curate predictions for the severity of damage at spe-
cific locations in complex structures such as bridges,
because the chosen damage indicators are not capa-
ble of reflecting the severity of the damage at local
level.
In this paper, effective structural model updating
and damage identification methods are presented by
using incomplete measured modal data, without re-
quiring modal expansion or model reduction tech-
niques. A scale-down steel structure model was con-
structed in laboratory for experimental studies.
Vibration testing for the structure model was per-
formed to obtain the dynamic response of the struc-
ture model under various dynamic excitations. Mod-
al parameters of the tested structure model, such as
frequencies and incomplete mode shapes, are ex-
tracted from the measured accelerations by modal
analysis techniques. The measured incomplete mod-
al data are then utilised for updating the finite ele-
ment model of the tested structure model. The influ-
ence of structural damage at various locations and
magnitudes on modal parameters is also investigated
by reducing stiffness of structural members. Fur-
thermore, a cable-stayed bridge is adopted for nu-
merical investigations on inverse structural damage
identification. Various structural damage scenarios
are simulated with different magnitudes at different
locations. The simulated damage scenarios are then
employed to investigate the effectiveness of the pro-
posed inverse damage identification method using
only incomplete vibration modal measurements.
2 DYNAMIC PERTURBATION METHOD
The dynamic perturbation method (Chen 2005) pro-
vides the exact relationship between the perturbation
of structural parameters, such as difference in stiff-
ness ( ΔK ) and mass ( ΔM ) between the FE model
and the tested structure, and modal properties, such
as the ith frequency ω i and the corresponding ei-
genvector φ i of the FE model as well as the ith fre-
quency ω̂ i and complete eigenvector φ̂ i of the tested
structure, expressed here as
N
φ k ( ΔK − ωˆ i ΔM )φˆ i
T 2
 2
ωi − ωk
ˆ 2
φ k − φˆ i = 0 (1)
k =1
The complete eigenvector of the tested structure
with dimension of a total number of N degrees of
freedom (DOF) can be expressed as a linear combi-
nation of the numerical eigenvectors, since the nu-
merical eigenvectors are linearly independent due to
the symmetry of the stiffness and mass matrices of
the FE model, namely
N
φˆ i =  C ik φ k (2)
k =1
where C ik are mode participation factors, defined as
Cik = φ k Mφˆ i
T
(3)
In structural dynamic testing, modal data about
the natural frequency ω̂i and mode shape readings
ψ̂ i of the tested structure can be extracted from vi-
bration measurements by modal analysis techniques.
The measured mode shapes ψ̂ i , with dimension of
Ns where Ns is the total number of effective sensors
installed, are usually incomplete with reference to
the FE model typically having large number of
DOFs, since the number of sensors installed for vi-
bration measurements is often limited in practice.
The measured modes are paired to the numerical ei-
genvectors of dimension Ns (restricted to the same
dimensions as ψ̂ i ), φ ak , by using Modal Assurance
Criterion (MAC) factors defined as
T 2
φ ak ψ
ˆi
MAC (φ ak , ψ
ˆ i) = (4)
aT T a
φ φ ψˆ i ψˆ i
k k
From above definition, large MAC factors indi-
cate a high degree of similarity between two mode
shapes, while small MAC factors represent little or
even no correlation between two vectors. In the ap-
plication of governing equation Eq. (1), the meas-
ured incomplete mode shapes of the actual tested
structure need to be close to the corresponding part
of the original numerical eigenvectors φ ia . The
measured DOF’s readings ψ̂ i are then scaled by a
mode scale factor υ i , giving the scaled modal meas-
urement vector φ̂ ia of dimension Ns as
T
φˆ ia = υ i ψˆ i , where υ i = φ ia ψˆ i / ψˆ i T ψ
ˆi (5)
From Eq. (2), the ith complete mode shape of the
tested structure, consisting of the measured compo-
nents and the remaining calculated components, is
then given by
N
φˆ i = ϕ ia + C ik φ uk (6)
k =1, k ≠ i
where φ uk is original eigenvector corresponding to
the entries of the unmeasured components and ϕ ia is
a known vector of dimension N, defined as
ϕ ia = υ i ψˆ i + φ ui (7)
In the proposed model updating and damage iden-
tification method, structural system parameters to be
updated or identified, such as parameters for materi-
al and geometric properties, are employed to reflect
the perturbation of structural parameters, e.g. stiff-
ness matrix and/or mass matrix. The structural sys-
tem parameters can characterise the structural pa-
rameters at element level or at integration point
level. In the case where structural perturbation pa-
rameters are chosen at element level, the change in
element stiffness matrix ΔK e can be expressed by
ˆ −K =α K
ΔK e = K (8)
e e e e
where α e is a stiffness perturbation parameter char-
acterised at element level to be determined; K e and
K̂ e are the eth element stiffness matrices for the FE
model and the tested structure, respectively.
 For structures with beam elements, it is difficult Nα N
~
to accurately model connections of these elements in [p ajii +
j =1
C
k =1, k ≠ i
ik p ujik ]α j
the FE model and the stiffness at the joints is often (13)
Nβ N
estimated with uncertainty. To effectively update the ~
[q +  Cik q umik ]β m − φ̂ ia = 0
2
− ωˆ i a
mii
bending stiffness at the ends of elements, the ele- m =1 k =1, k ≠ i
ment stiffness is now calculated from an integral
where the sensitivity coefficients associated with the
form. The change in element stiffness matrix ΔK be known eigenmodes and structural parameters are de-
between the element stiffness of tested structure K̂ be fined in a general form as
T
and the element stiffness of the FE model K be for φ k K j ϕ ia T u
, p ujil =  φk2 K j φl2 φak
N N
p ajii =  φ ak (14a)
the beam element is given by k =1 ωˆ i 2 − ω k 2 k =1 ωˆ i − ωk

 r r
ˆ b − Kb = α Kb
ΔK be = K (9)
e e
r k =1 ωˆ i 2 − ωk 2
where α r is stiffness perturbation parameter charac-
b
terised at critical point level to be determined, K is
r
stiffness contribution at critical point level to the
global stiffness matrix.
Consequently, the change of global stiffness ma-
trix between the tested structure and FE model is
written as
Nα
ΔK =  α j K j (10)
j =1
where Nα represents the total number of stiffness
perturbation parameters adopted in calculations; α j
is stiffness perturbation parameter characterised at
element level or integration point level; K j is the
contribution of the jth element or integration point to
the global stiffness matrix.
Similarly, the the change of global mass matrix
between the tested structure and FE model is ex-
pressed as
Nβ
ΔM =  β m M m (11)
m =1
where Nβ represents the total number of mass per-
turbation parameters β m ; M m is the mth contribu-
tion to the global mass matrix.
In order to avoid iterative procedures in structural
model updating and damage identification, the mode
participation factors C ik for the ith measured mode
are simply estimated by using Eq. (3), where the ith
complete mode shapes of the tested structure φ̂ i is
approximately replaced by the known vector ϕ ia de-
fined in Eq. (7), giving
~ Τ
Cik = φ k Mϕ ia (12)
~ rameters. The structure has four stories comprising
By using the estimated Cik and the perturbations
of stiffness and mass matrices, the governing equa-
tions in Eq. (1) for the ith measured mode are now
expressed in a set of linear equations as
T T
N
φ k M m ϕ ia a , N
φ k M m φ ul a
q amii =  φ k q u
mil =  φk (14b)
k =1 ωˆ i 2 − ωk 2
On the basis of the governing equations Eq. (13),
a direct solution procedure is sufficient to solve for a
total number of Nx (= Nα + Nβ ) structural perturba-
tion parameters α j and β m . In the case when a total
number of Nm experimental modes are measured
from a total number of Ns sensors installed on the
tested structure, the governing equation Eq. (13)
should be used for the total number of Nm measured
modes to generate a total number of Np ( = Nm × Ns )
equations available in order to find a solution for a
total number of Nx structural perturbation parame-
ters to be determined. A regularisation method such
as the Tikhonov regularisation (Tikhonov and
Arsenin 1993) is applied to find a solution for what
is in general an ill-conditioned system.
For structural model updating, the structural up-
dating parameters α j and β m are directly estimated
from these linear governing equations in Eq. (13).
For structural damage identification, the globe
mass matrix of the structure M is considered un-
changed before and after damage because the mass
is assumed here not affected by structural damage,
i.e. β m = 0 for m = 1, Nβ . The structural perturbation
parameters α j represent here as structural damage
indicators for inverse damage identification.
3 LABORATORY VIBRATION TESTING
A small scale steel model structure, as shown in
Figure 1, was utilised for experimental studies to
demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the
proposed FE model updating method and to investi-
gate the influence of structural damage on modal pa-
of 10 structural members at each storey, i.e. four
columns, four beams and two diagonal braces. The
beams and columns are modelled as conventional
beams and the braces as axial bar elements. The
connection joints of beams and columns are mod-
elled as rigid joints to maintain bending moments.
The first six measured frequencies and the associ-
ated incomplete mode shapes for the laboratory test-
ed model structure are shown in Fig. 3. These meas-
ured incomplete modes are adopted for updating the
FE model.

1st mode, 2nd mode, 3rd mode,

10.569Hz 26.386Hz 32.258Hz

Figure 1. Steel structure model used in laboratory structural

dynamic testing.

In laboratory vibration testing, a total number of 16

accelerometers are placed at beam-column joints to
measure only translational displacement readings in
horizontal directions. The modal data such as fre-
quencies and mode shape readings at measured
4th mode, 5th mode, 6th mode,
DOFs are extracted from the acceleration measure-
46.018Hz 51.847Hz 65.522Hz
ments by using modal analysis technique, as shown
in Fig. 2. Figure 3. First six measured modes of the steel structure model
from laboratory vibration testing.

The FE numerical model used for structural mod-

el updating has 20 nodes and 40 elements with a to-
tal number of 96 DOFs, as shown in Fig. 4.

a) Acceleration measurements

b) Identified frequencies
Figure 4. Finite element model for the steel structure model
Figure 2. Vibration test results for the steel structure model. adopted for model updating.
 Damage Pattern 2: No stiffness in any of the brac-
es in the levels 1 and 3
Damage Pattern 3: No stiffness in any of the brac-
es in the levels 1, 2 and 3
Damage Pattern 4: No stiffness in any of the brac-
es in all stories.
Laboratory vibration testing was carried out to
measure natural frequencies for each of damage pat-
tern by reducing stiffness of braces in various levels.
The experimental results for various damage pat-
terns are summarised below in Table 4.
posed approach for inverse structural damage identi-
fication from limited incomplete modal data by nu-
merical investigations. The elevation and dimension
of cable-stayed bridge are shown in Fig. 5. The
cross-sectional properties of each component are
listed in Table 5. The numbers of structural members
shown in Table 5 correspond to those indicated in
Fig. 5. The modulus of elasticity is taken as E=2.1×
1011N/m2 for steel of the structure and E=3.2×
1010N/m2 for concrete.
10

4x3.5=14.0
9
8
Table 4. Experimental natural frequencies of the steel structure

28.8144
7

14.8144
model for various damage patterns.

29.86
Intact Damage Damage Damage Damage 11
8.0 4x9=36.0 4.867
Mode
(Hz) pattern 1 pattern 2 pattern 3 pattern 4 5.4 9.733

1 2 3 4 3 2 5 6 128/2=64.0m 56.0m
10.6 10.5 10.5 10.4 10.4 Bending
26.4 18.8 18.0 14.9 14.6 Torsion
32.3 32.2 32.3 32.7 32.8 Bending Figure 5. Elevation and dimension of fan-system cable-stayed
46.0 45.9 45.0 44.2 43.0 Torsion
bridge.
51.8 52.2 52.8 52.9 52.7 Bending
Table 5. cross-sectional and material properties of the ca-
65.5 63.5 63.4 64.5 65.7 Mixed
ble-stayed bridge
The results in Table 4 show that the largest Number of Area Moment of Mass
change of frequency is the second mode (first tor- Member Members (m2) Inertia (103kg/m)
sion), reducing from 26.4Hz for the intact structure (10-4m4)
to 18.8Hz for damage pattern 1 and further to Girder 1 4.976 2.730 16.213
14.6Hz for damage pattern 4. The forth mode (sec- Girder 2 4.976 2.730 17.194
ond torsion) is also affected by structural damage, Girder 3 5.420 3.462 18.415
reducing from 46.0Hz for the intact structure to Girder 4 6.012 4.662 18.522
43.0Hz for damage pattern 4. This is because the Girder 5 4.560 2.814 16.971
brace members of the steel structure model make Girder 6 3.444 2.125 11.094
significant contributions to the torsional stiffness. Girder 7 0.007032 / 0.120
Damage in brace members by reducing their stiff- Cable 8, 12 0.009897 / 0.168
ness causes decrease in the torsional stiffness, con- Cable 9, 13 0.012722 / 0.218
sequently leading to decrease in torsional frequen- Tower 10 4.800 1.600 12.274
cies. Pier 11 30.000 19.980 79.894
The frequencies corresponding to bending modes
appear no significant change due to damage in the
brace members of the steel structure model. The fre- Four damage scenarios are generated with dam-
quencies should be reduced after structural damage age at different locations and magnitudes in the
in theory. However, due to uncertainties in laborato- structure, as summarized in Table 6.
ry vibration testing such as disturbance of structure,
Table 6. Hypothetical damage scenarios by reducing stiff-
different vibration excitation methods and noise in ness at various locations with different magnitudes
vibration measurements, the measured frequencies
will have some uncertainties with small increase af- Scenario Element No Gauss Point No Damage Amount
ter damage occurs in the structure. 1 35, 36, 37 105, 106, 108, 109 -30%
2 35, 36, 37 105, 106, 169 -30%
3 18, 19, 25, 30 54, 55, 75, 90 -30%
4 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS 4 14, 15, 30 51, 57, 62 -20%
42, 43, 88 151, 172, 186 -30%
A model of the actually constructed fan-system ca-
ble-stayed bridge (Wang and Huang 1992) is now The simulated structural damage scenarios are al-
adopted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the pro- so illustrated in Fig. 6, where structural damage oc-
curs at various locations such as in towers, cables

Damage Amount (in %)

-40

and girders. In this study, it is assumed that only -30

translation displacement readings at the nodes -20

-10
marked with "●" on the girder shown in Fig. 6 are 0

available, generating incomplete mode shapes with 10

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191

limited DOFs readings. Gauss Point No.

Damage Area a) Predicted damage for damage scenario 1

x x x Damage Area

Damage Amount (in %)

1 2 3 18 Damage Area -40
51
Gauss Points 24 19 29 57 52 62
-30
25 58 63
30
-20
66
-10
1 2 12 13 14 15 16 17 34 35 36 37 38 50
0
10
Damage Area
1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191

Gauss Point No.

Figure 6. Details of simulated damage scenarios for the cable-

b) Predicted damage for damage scenario 2
stayed bridge.

Damage Amount (in %)

-40
-30
The girder is supported vertically at the towers -20

but is independent of the towers. Therefore, the -10

bending moments are not transferred between the 0

10
girder and the tower. The cables have initial tensile 1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191

forces due to the dead loads, so that they are capable Gauss Point No.

of resisting compressive forces during vibration of c) Predicted damage for damage scenario 3
the structure.
Damage Amount (in %)

-40
Different element stiffness matrices are used in -30

the cable-stayed bridge to generate the global stiff- -20

-10
ness matrix, and nonlinearity in the inclined cable 0

stays is considered in element stiffness for cables. 10

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191
The bridge structure has a total number of 66 struc- Gauss Point No.

tural elements with a total number of 136 DOFs.

Structural damage is characterized at critical point
level for all structural members, e.g. cable, girder,
tower and pier members, with a total number of 198
damage parameters to be identified.
A finite element analysis was performed for both
the intact and damaged structures to calculate natural
frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes. In
the following, the computed frequencies and the cor-
responding DOF’s readings of the damaged structure
are adopted in inverse damage predictions in place
of the measured experimental modal data, which
would normally be furnished from experiments. The
first 6 noise free incomplete modes of the original
and damaged structures are considered for the in-
verse prediction of simulated structural damage sce-
narios in the bridge.
The results in Fig. 7 are for inverse predictions
for different damage scenarios simulated at critical
point level as shown in Fig. 6. Here, numerically in-
tegrated element stiffness matrices obtained from in-
tegrations for all structural members of the bridge
are utilised, and three integration points are consid-
ered for all structural elements. The information
about the incomplete damaged modes 1, 3, 5 and 6 is
used for inversely identifying four simulated damage
scenarios.
d) Predicted damage for damage scenario 4
Figure 7. Inverse damage predictions for different damage sce-
narios at critical point level, information on incomplete dam-
aged modes 1, 3, 5 and 6 with the sensor array used.
From the results, it is found that structural dam-
age can be located correctly for each of the simulat-
ed damage scenarios, while the extent of structural
damage can also be estimated if the total amount of
structural damage within a cable spreading within its
integration point locations is considered. The results
presented here show that the inverse predictions for
structural damage may not be unique, as the same
damaged stiffness can result from different structural
damage scenarios, e.g. the cases of element stiffness
for cables.
5 CONCLUSION
On the basis of the results from the experimental
studies for the steel structure model tested in labora-
tory and numerical investigations for a actually con-
structed cable-stayed bridge, the following conclu-
sions are noted:
1) The proposed approach is capable of success-
fully updating structural parameters and identifying
structural damage such as stiffness at critical point
level, so that the stiffness parameters at the connec-
tions of structural members such as beam-column
joints can be evaluated from information on meas-
ured incomplete modes.
2) The proposed method could be directly used
for updating the finite element models for real engi-
neering structures to avoid an iterative solution pro-
cedure, since the dynamic perturbation method pro-
vides direct relationship between structural updating
parameters and the measured modal data.
3) The experimental results show that the fre-
quencies associated with torsion modes may change
significantly due to damage in the brace members by
reducing their stiffness, the frequencies associated
with bending modes may not have remarkable shifts
even severe damage exists in braces.
4) Only information about incomplete modal data
with a limited number of DOF's readings is suffi-
cient to correctly update finite element models and
to inversely identify damage in structures, making
the proposed method promising in practices.
5) The proposed approach is capable of not only
identifying the multiple locations of damage in dif-
ferent members of a structure, but also can provide
information on the extent of the structural damage
from incomplete modal data.
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