Finite element model calibration using frequency responses with damping equalization

Abstract

Model calibration is a cornerstone of the finite element verification and validation procedure, in which the credibility of the model is substantiated by positive comparison with test data. The calibration problem, in which the minimum deviation between finite element model data and experimental data is searched for, is normally characterized as being a large scale optimization problem with many model parameters to solve for and with deviation metrics that are nonlinear in these parameters. The calibrated parameters need to be found by iterative procedures, starting from initial estimates. Sometimes these procedures get trapped in local deviation function minima and do not converge to the globally optimal calibration solution that is searched for. The reason for such traps is often the multi-modality of the problem which causes eigenmode crossover problems in the iterative variation of parameter settings. This work presents a calibration formulation which gives a smooth deviation metric with a large radius of convergence to the global minimum. A damping equalization method is suggested to avoid the mode correlation and mode pairing problems that need to be solved in many other model updating procedures. By this method, the modal damping of a test data model and the finite element model is set to be the same fraction of critical modal damping. Mode pairing for mapping of experimentally found damping to the finite element model is thus not needed. The method is combined with model reduction for efficiency and employs the Levenberg–Marquardt minimizer with randomized starts to achieve the calibration solution. The performance of the calibration procedure, including a study of parameter bias and variance under noisy data conditions, is demonstrated by two numerical examples.