An automated parameter selection procedure for finite-element model updating and its applications

Finite-element model updating is an inverse problem to identify and correct uncertain modeling parameters, which leads to better predictions of the dynamic behavior of a target structure. Unlike other inverse problems, the restrictions on selecting parameters are very high since the updated model should maintain its physical meaning. That is, only the regions with modeling errors should be parameterized and the variations of the parameters should be kept small while the updated results give acceptable correlations with experimental data. To avoid an ill-conditioned numerical problem, the number of parameters should be kept as small as possible. Thus it is very difficult to select an adequate set of updating parameters which meet all these requirements. In this paper, the importance of updating parameter selection is illustrated through a case study, and an automated procedure to guide the parameter selection is suggested based on simple observations. The effectiveness of the suggested procedure is tested with two example problems, one is a simulated case study and the other is a real engineering structure.