Recent progress on finite element model updating: From linearity to nonlinearity

Finite element (FE) analysis is extensively applied in practical engineering. However, FE model usually differs much from actual engineering structures due to modeling errors caused by meshing scales, boundary conditions, and material properties. Therefore an FE model has to be modified or updated by test data to make the FE model as close as possible to the real structure so that the updated model can be convincingly used for structural simulation, dynamic analysis, health monitoring or other engineering applications. Over the years, although FE model updating has been applied to many engineering applications successfully, the development of modern technology has put forward higher requirements on updated models, not only higher accuracy level but also higher confidence level. However, current methods are mostly confined to the linear structure hypothesis, which disagrees with the actual situations in many cases. Based on the background, this paper comprehensively reviews traditional FE model updating techniques with civil engineering structure as an example. Furthermore, influential model updating methods and their progress are surveyed and critically commented including recent progress of FE model validation. Especially, the evolution from linear to nonlinear FE model updating technology and essential research findings are summarized, then attractive perspectives are forecasted, and several promising issues are sketched out.