Parameters identification for a coupled bridge-vehicle system with spring-mass attachments

An approach is proposed to identify the physical parameters of a coupled bridge-vehicle system with spring-mass attachments using response sensitivity in time domain. Governing equation of the coupled bridge-vehicle system is established from finite element analysis and the dynamic responses of the system are obtained from direct integration method. In the inverse analysis, a dynamic response sensitivity based finite element model updating method is presented to identify elemental flexural rigidity of the beam system, the parameters of the spring-mass systems and the vehicular parameters from acceleration responses of several measurement points. The validity of the proposed method is illustrated by two numerical simulations. It is found that all the parameters can be identified with high accuracy, and the proposed method is insensitive to artificial measurement noise, thus it has the potential for practical applications.