Reconstruction of missing response data for identification of higher modes

The problem of reconstruction of complete building response from a limited number of response measurements is considered. The response at the intermediate degrees of freedom is reconstructed by using piecewise cubic Hermite polynomial interpolation in time domain. The piecewise cubic Hermite polynomial interpolation is preferred over the spline interpolation due to its trend preserving character. It has been shown that factorization of response data in variable separable form via singular value decomposition can be used to derive the complete set of normal modes of the structural system. The time domain principal components can be used to derive empirical transfer functions from which the natural frequencies of the structural system can be identified by peak-picking technique. A reduced-rank approximation for the system flexibility matrix can be readily constructed from the identified massorthonormal mode shapes and natural frequencies.