V ol. 18 No.

1 CH INES E JO U RN A L O F AER ON A U TICS February 2005

Identification of the Mechanical Joint Parameters with

Model Uncertainty

GUO Qin t ao, ZHANG Ling mi

( Inst itute of V ibration Engineer ing , Nanj ing Uni versity of A eronaut ics and A stronautics,
Nanj i ng 210016 , China)

Abstract: Joint parameter ident ification is a key problem in the modeling of complex structur es. T he
behavior of jo int may be random due to the random pr operties of preload and joint g eometries, contact
surface and its finish, etc. A method is presented to simulate the joint par ameters as probabilistic vari
ables. In t his method the response surface based model updating method and probabilistic approaches are
emplo yed to identify the parameter s. T he study implies that jo int parameters of some structures have
normal or nearly no rmal distr ibutions, and a linear F E model with probabilistic variables could illustrate
dynamic character istics of joints.
Key words: jo int par ameter identificat ion; model updating; model uncertaint y; response surface
计及不确定性因素的结合面参数识别. 郭勤涛, 张令弥. 中国航空学报( 英文版) , 2005, 18( 1) : 47
- 52.
摘 要: 结合面参数识别是复杂结 构动力 学建模 的关键 问题。由于 连接结 构的接 触面的 大小、摩
擦系数, 以及安装预应力等相关参数 存在不 确定性, 本文 提出把 连接结 构的接 触刚度及 接触阻 尼
作为随机分布参数处理, 并使用基于 响应面 法的模 型修正方 法和分 布代数 方法进 行识别, 方法 可
行, 便于实际工程应用。研究表明, 连接结构参数具有正态分布或 近似正态 分布的特点; 用线 性有
限元模型加上具有正态分布的接触刚度、
接触阻尼模 型可以描述真实结构的动态特性。
关键词: 结合面参数识别; 模型修正; 模型不确定性; 响应面法
文章编号: 1000 9361( 2005) 01 0047 06 中图分类号: T B115; O242. 21 文献标识码: A

Finite element ( F E) analysis has becom e a
rout ine pract ice in structural dynamics. How ever,
it is w ell know n that a FE model can be erroneous
due to mis modeling of some part s of a st ruct ure.
T hese parts, including mechanical joints, are oft en
very complicat ed so t hat it may not always be pos
sible to derive accurat e models ( such as a contact
F E model ) by using purely analyt ical approach.
Hence, ident if ying or ex tracting a t heoret ical
met hod of a mechanical joint from ex perimental
model is an att ractive and prom ising area w hich
many engineers interested in[ 1 4] .
T he joint ident if icat ion techniques based on
combining analyt ical method w it h ex perimental ap
proach can be generally divided int o tw o main cate
[ 5 7]
gories. T he one is to derive a series of equat ions
w hich denot e the relationship bet w een joint param
eters and modal parameters or F RFs ( Frequency
R eceived dat e: 2004 03 12; R evision received dat e: 2004 09 09
Foundation it em: Specialized R esearch Fund f or t he Doctoral Program of Higher Educat ion( 20010287012)
© 1994-2010 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. http://www.cnki.net
Response Funct ions) by solving t he mot ion equa
t ions of the system. T his kind of approach may be
very sophist icat ed or resulting in larg e errors in
damping ident ificat ion [ 7] .
T he other one is the model updat ing based op
t imizat ion met hod, w hose accuracy and feasibilit y
have m ade it an eff icient approach in joint ident if i
cat ion[ 8, 9] . How ever, tw o drawbacks should be
overcome when dealing w it h joint ident if icat ion.
First , model updating is ef ficient when t he param
eters have lit tle error. But joint parameters may
have large errors ( > 50% ) need to be updat ed.
Secondly, F E models need model reduct ion when
comparing w ith experiment al models.
In structural dynamics, t he F E model of a me
chanical joint includes springs, damper and ot her
element f ormulat ions. Furt her more, the model
can be nonlinear or has st ochast ic feat ures. Model
 48 G U O Qin tao, ZHAN G L ing mi CJA

ing of joint in st ructural dynamics has been st udied framework of joint ident if icat ion is show n in
[ 10]
ext ensively . Gang gaharan present s a probabilis Fig 1. In t his part, three issues involved in t he
t ic syst em identification method by using static re joint ident if icat ion w it h uncertainty w ill be dis
[ 11]
sponse. How ard Walther studied on model un cussed.
certaint y and ex perimental dat a variability of a
bolt ed joint. Qiao [ 12] developed a relaxat ion model
of joint w it h t he consideration of t ime independent
[ 13]
uncertaint y. Aumann proposed a method t o il
lust rat e a bolt ed joint by a Smallw ood model.
T he behavior of joint may be random due t o
the random propert ies of preload and joint geome
t ries, cont act surf ace and it s f inishes, et c. Assum
ing that t he normal and t angent ial st if fnesses and
the corresponding damping coeff icients can illus
t rat e the characterist ics of t he joint, it can be con
cluded t hat the st if fnesses and t heir damping coeff i
cients are random and variable. T hat is the very
reason w hy the modal parameters of st ruct ures w ith
joint s are random. In EMA ( Ex periment al Modal Fig . 1 T he flow chart of parameters identification of the
Analysis) , modal dam ping rat ios have more vari mechanical joint with model uncertainty
ance t han frequencies, and t his is not only due t o 1. 1 FE modeling of mechanical joint
the test noise but also due to the changing of damp F or a st ruct ure in free v ibration mode, t he
ing itself . mass m at rix , st if fness mat rix and dam ping m at rix
In order t o model those st ruct ures w ith joint of t he FE model denote as M, K and C. Suppose
model uncertainty , bot h mean values and variance the damping of syst em is viscous, t hen, C= 1M
are needed in F EA response predict ion. T his also + 2 K, where 1 and 2 can be det erm ined by t he
can meet the needs of VP ES ( Virt ual Protot yping low er order modal damping rat ios. F or those struc
Ex periment Simulat ion) , FE model validat ion and t ures w hose dam ping can not ex pressed as t he lin
st ruct ural reliabilit y eng ineering . ear combination of M and K, a more complicated
T he st udy presents here is a RSM ( Response model should be int roduced[ 16] .
Surf ace M et hodology ) based model updating tech Considering t he model of a joint , t he F E mod
nique[ 14] combined w ith probabilistic approach[ 15] .
el should be supplemented w ith joint st iff ness K ,
F irst ly, using EMA to obtain t he st ochastic proper
joint dam ping mat rix C and joint mass m at rix
t ies of the modal param eters. Secondly , identifying
M . By solving the eigenvalue problem, modal pa
the mean values of the joint parameters by t he
ramet ers( , !) are obt ained. Suppose the damp
model updat ing t echnique. T he t hird step is est i
ing is viscous, then t he follow ing equat ions ex ist :
mat ion of t he st andard deviat ions of the parameters T T
Cr = [ C+ C ] , M r = [M+ M ] ,
by using t he probabilist ic approach.
Kr = T
[ K+ K ] , ∀r = Cr / 2 Mr K r
1 Basic T heory
where ∀r denotes the modal damping rat io of t he
In t his st udy it is presumed t hat bot h joint pa assembly.
ramet ers and response features ( such as modal fre 1. 2 Identification of mean values of joint para
quencies and damping rat ios) are random variables meters via RSM based model updating
w it h normal or nearly normal dist ributions. A T he met hod includes the follow ing main
© 1994-2010 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. http://www.cnki.net
 February 2005 Ident if icat ion of t he M echanical J oint Param eters w ith M odel U ncert ainty 49

st eps: Comput e response feat ures of every design
point in t he space spanned by t he paramet ers ac
cording t o DOEs ( Design of Experiments) . T hen a
high order polynomial model ( or other RS models
such as an art if icial neural net w ork) is regressed
as: y j ( p ) = f j ( p ) + #j . T hen the updating prob
lem can be ex pressed as a optimizat ion procedure
2
Mp in R ( p ) 2 , R ( p ) = { y E } - { y A ( p ) }
s. t p l ! p ! pu
( 1)
w here f j ( p ) is t he RS models; #j is the bias error
of regression; p is the vector of joint parameters,
{ y E } and { y A } are the mean values of ex perimental
and analyt ical response features, respectively; R is
the residue; p l and p u are t he low er and upper
bound of p . Obviously, bot h R and { y A } are t he
funct ions of p . T he optimizat ion problem can be
solved by the follow ing equation
p = S+ y ( 2)
+
w here S is the pseudo inverse of t he sensit ivit y
mat rix [ 14] ( or known as Jacobian mat rix ) . T he
sensit ivity mat rix can be derived f rom the RS mod
els by differentiat ion.
1. 3 Estimation of the standard deviations of
joint parameters
T he equation to compute st andard deviat ions
of response features is[ 15]
n
T hen standard deviat ions of joint parameters are
{ ∃2p i } = Z+ { ∃2yj } ( 6)
T he pseudo inverse of Z can be solved by sin
gular value decomposit ion.
2 Experim ental Case Study
T wo quest ions w ill be answered in this case
study. T he first is w hether t he jo int param eters
and t he response feat ures of st ruct ures in pract ical
have normal distribut ions or not . T he second is
whet her the linear FE model combined w ith proba
bilistic joint parameters can illust rate t he dynamic
propert ies of a structure or not .
2. 1 Modeling of the flange joint structure
Since bolt ed joint and w elded joint as w ell as
rivets are very common in aero and space struc
t ures, a flange bolted joint st ruct ure ( shown in
Fig 2) is employed in the case st udy . A box sec
t ion t ube w ith a square plat e at its end as flange is
connect ed to anot her fixed plate by using four bolt s

∃2y = ( % y / % p i ) 2 ∃2p i ( 3)
i= 1
2 2
w here ∃y and ∃p i are t he st andard deviations of re
sponse feat ures and joint parameters, respect ively.
and %y / %p i is t he first order deviation of y versus
p . Suppose the number of response f eatures is m ,
then Eq. ( 3) can be rew rit ten as
n

∃2yj = ( %y j / %p i ) 2 ∃2p i ( j = 1, ∀, m )
i= 1

( 4)
In mat rix formula Eq. ( 3) is
{ ∃2yj } = Z{ ∃2p i } ( 5)
w here
( %y 1 / % p 1 ) 2 ( %y 1 / % p 2 ) 2 ∀ ( %y 1 / % p n ) 2
( %y 2 / % p 1 ) 2 ( %y 2 / % p 2 ) 2 ∀ ( %y 2 / % p n ) 2
Z=
& & & &
( %y m / % p n ) ( %y m / % p n )
2 2
∀ ( %y m / % p n ) 2 F ig. 2 T he flange joint structure

© 1994-2010 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. http://www.cnki.net
 50 G U O Qin tao, ZHAN G L ing mi
w it h 3mm t hickness damping material bet ween
them.
T he FE model of t he st ruct ure and joint posi
t ion are show n in F ig 3. T he FE model consists of
F ig. 3 T he FE mo del of flange joint structure
4000 shell element s and 48( 3DOF) spring element s
along w it h 48( 3DOF ) dampers in and * posi
t ions. and * st and f or different z direct ion
st iff ness and dam per. H ence, t here are 6 joint pa
ramet ers need to be ident ified. Response f eatures
are t he lower f ive order modal frequencies and
damping rat ios.
2. 2 EMA and identified results
A sequence of experiments is designed in order
to exam ine t he modal paramet ers of t he st ruct ure.
During the test , ex citations are generat ed by using
a ham mer w ith a force t ransducer, and all impact s
are applied at the cent er of t he structure and at ap
prox imately t he same level. M otions are measured
by using a acceleromet er mount ed w ith glue at t he
free end. T he excit at ion force and mot ion response
are captured by using a HP 35670 signal analyzer.
T he signals are analyzed in N M odal sof tw are.
Eight experiment s are designed to assess ran
domness in assembly/ disassembly. T he variance
© 1994-2010 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. http://www.cnki.net
CJA
due to t he test it self is exam ined by comparing sev
eral result s of t he same assembly ( error of frequen
cy < 0 1% , damping ratio < 1% ) . Aft er stat ist ic
analysis of t he dat a, the means and t he st andard
derivat ions of the response feat ures are obtained.
From t he normal probability plot it can be conclud
ed t hat dat a dist ribut ion are normal or nearly nor
mal ( show n in Fig. 4 and F ig. 5) .
Fig . 4 Normal pr obability plot of the modal frequency
F ig. 5 N ormal probabilit y plot of the modal
damping ratio
In t he example, D opt imal design w it h 25
runs is employed in regression of t he f ive order
polynomials. T hen the mean values and st andard
deviat ions of the joint paramet ers are obt ained us
ing t he present ed approach.
In order to verif y whet her t he ident if ied pa
ramet ers consist w it h t he test, the mean values and
standard deviat ions of modal f requencies and damp
ing rat ios are computed by FEA combined w ith
Mont e Carlo simulat ions by using t he identified pa
ramet ers. By comparing t he normal PDF plot s of
the ident ified result wit h t est , it is obviously true
that t he distribut ions of modal frequencies mat ch
each ot her quite w ell, and modal dam ping ratios
mat ch almost w ell ( show n in Fig. 6 and F ig . 7) .
 February 2005 Ident if icat ion of t he M echanical J oint Param eters w ith M odel U ncert ainty 51

Fig . 7 Normal P DF plots o f both the ex perimental and

identified FE mo del modal damping ratios

Fig . 6 Normal PDF plots o f both the ex perimental and
identified FE model modal frequency
3 Conclusions
T he experim ent al study implies t hat t he pre
sent ed joint ident if icat ion approach is valid in deal
ing w ith joints w it h uncert aint y. T he linear FE
model combined w ith random joint paramet ers w ith
normal dist ributions can illustrate t he dynamic
characterist ics of a st ructure more reasonably. T he
oret ically, t he presented met hod can be used in
complex modal area or nonlinear dynamics, the on
ly dif ference is t hat t he direct FEA w ill be more so
phisticated. How t o model a joint more realist ically
and f easibility is a key problem and needs furt her
study. T he accuracy of st andard deviat ions can be
improved by taking account hig h order T aylor se
ries in probabilist ic approach.

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Biographies:
GUO Qin tao Born in 1970 in Henan
province, he is a Ph. D. candidate of
N anjing U niversity of A eronautics and
Astronautics. His resear ch invo lved in
the follo wing areas: F E model updating
and validation. He has published sever al
scientific papers in various per iodicals.
T el: 025- 84892126, E mail: guo_qintao@ so hu. com
ZHANG Ling mi Born in 1938 in Zhejiang province, he is
a pr ofessor of Nanjing U niversity of Aeronautics and Astro
nautics. His r esearching areas include: Parameter identifica
tion of structure system, model updating, vibr atio n control
system. He has published mo re 200 scientific papers in vari
ous periodicals. E mail: lmzae@ nuaa. edu. cn