Structural system identification including shear deformation of composite bridges from vertical deflections

Abstract

Shear deformation effects are neglected in most structural system identification methods. This assumption might lead to important errors in some structures like built up steel or composite deep beams. Recently, the observability techniques were presented as one of the first methods for the inverse analysis of structures including the shear effects. In this way, the mechanical properties of the structures could be obtained from the nodal movements measured on static tests. One of the main controversial features of this procedure is the fact that the measurement set must include rotations. This characteristic might be especially problematic in those structures where rotations cannot be measured. To solve this problem and to increase its applicability, this paper proposes an update of the observability method to enable the structural identification including shear effects by measuring only vertical deflections. This modification is based on the introduction of a numerical optimization method. With this aim, the inverse analysis of several examples of growing complexity are presented to illustrate the validity and potential of the updated method.