Incorporating modal testing into dynamic load identification from structural vibration measurement

Load identification from vibration measurements is usually cost-effective for obtaining dynamic loads on structures. Modal testing enables structural models to be validated or updated prior to being used for load identification. This paper proposes a methodology to make better use of modal test data for developing load identification methods. Modal test data are split into two datasets. One is used for model updating, and the other is used to validate load identification methods by inputting the measured vibration response and comparing the identified loads with the measured loads. Crossvalidation can be achieved by using different splitting of data. This paper demonstrates this methodology with a case study in which impact hammer tests are performed on a stiffly-connected assembly. The test data support the optimization-based updating of a simplified model and the validation of a proposed Newmark-β-based load identification method. The results show that different impact locations of the model updating dataset affect the identification accuracy of the load identification dataset. The Newmark-β- based method yields comparable performance to the traditional frequency-domain method, while it has the advantage of being implemented at each time step.