Practical issues in signal processing for structural flexibility identification

Compared to ambient vibration testing, impact testing has the merit to extract not only structural modal parameters but also structural flexibility. Therefore, structural deflections under any static load can be predicted from the identified results of the impact test data. In this article, a signal processing procedure for structural flexibility identification is first presented. Especially, practical issues in applying the proposed procedure for structural flexibility identification are investigated, which include sensitivity analyses of three pre-defined parameters required in the data pre-processing stage to investigate how they affect the accuracy of the identified structural flexibility. Finally, multiple-reference impact test data of a three-span reinforced concrete T-beam bridge are simulated by the FE analysis, and they are used as a benchmark structure to investigate the practical issues in the proposed signal processing procedure for structural flexibility identification.