Response Surface–Based Finite-Element-Model Updating Using Structural Static Responses

Abstract

With the aid of the response surface methodology, which is a combination of mathematical and statistical techniques, this paper presents a method for updating a finite-element model based on the measured static responses of structures. Unlike in the traditional model updating procedure, original finite-element models are replaced with response surface models constructed using the uniform design. By this means the complexity of a structure can be easily expressed by explicit functions with low dimensions. A parameter scope shrinking technique is also proposed to construct response surface models. The proposed method is verified against a numerical beam and an experimental full-scale continuous box-girder bridge. It is demonstrated that the proposed response surface–based finite-element-model updating in structural statics has the advantages of easy implementation, high cost-efficiency, and adequate updating accuracy. Once the response surface model that is formulated explicitly is constructed, no finite-element calculation is required in each optimization iteration during updating. Therefore, such finite-element model updating can be easily implemented in practice with available commercial finite-element analysis packages.