Andrea Bellino

Time-Varying Output-Only Identification of a cracked beam

In this paper a time-varying identification method is presented, in order to detect the presence of an open crack in a beam with a moving mass travelling on it. The ratio between the considered moving mass and the total mass of the beam is high, thus the identified modal frequencies of the whole structure are time-varying. This situation often occurs when considering the dynamic interaction beetween a train and a bridge and specific identification tools must be used. It is shown that the identification method, referred to here as Short-Time Stochastic Subspace Identification, can give information about the presence of damage in case of time-varying systems.

Determination of moving load characteristics by output-only identification over the Pescara beams

The determination of the characteristics of moving loads over bridges and beams is a topic that only recently has gained the interest of the researchers. In real applications, in fact, as for the case of bridges, it is not always possible to know the load and speed of the trains which are travelling over the bridge. Moreover, in real applications the systems analyzed cannot be always considered linear. Because of these difficulties, the present paper proposes firstly a technique for the identification of the nonlinearity, secondly a procedure to subtract its effect on the modal parameters and finally a method based on them to extract the information on the mass and the speed of the moving load crossing a beam. For this study, some reinforced concrete beams have been tested in the framework of a vast project titled Monitoring and diagnostics of railway bridges by means of the analysis of the dynamics response due to train crossing, financed by Italian Ministry of Research. These beams show a clear softening nonlinear behaviour during the crossing of a moving carriage. The method is able to detect the load characteristics after having eliminated the nonlinear influence.

Prediction of Modal Parameters of Linear Time-Varying Systems

Many engineering structures, such as cranes, traffic-excited bridges, flexible mechanisms and robotic devices exhibit characteristics that vary with time and are referred to as time-varying or nonstationary. In particular, linear time-varying (LTV) systems have been often dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Many concepts and analytic methods of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems cannot be applied to LTV systems, as for example the conventional definition of modal parameters. In fact, LTV systems violate one of the assumptions of the conventional modal analysis, which is stationarity.

Damping Effects Induced by a Mass Moving along a Pendulum

The experimental study of damping in a time-varying inertia pendulum is presented. The system consists of a disk travelling along an oscillating pendulum: large swinging angles are reached, so that its equation of motion is not only time-varying but also nonlinear. Signals are acquired from a rotary sensor, but some remarks are also proposed as regards signals measured by piezoelectric or capacitive accelerometers. Time-varying inertia due to the relative motion of the mass is associated with the Coriolis-type effects appearing in the system, which can reduce and also amplify the oscillations. The analytical model of the pendulum is introduced and an equivalent damping ratio is estimated by applying energy considerations. An accurate model is obtained by updating the viscous damping coefficient in accordance with the experimental data. The system is analysed through the application of a subspace-based technique devoted to the identification of linear time-varying systems: the so-called short-time stochastic subspace identification (ST-SSI). This is a very simple method recently adopted for estimating the instantaneous frequencies of a system. In this paper, the ST-SSI method is demonstrated to be capable of accurately estimating damping ratios, even in the challenging cases when damping may turn to negative due to the Coriolis-type effects, thus causing amplifications of the system response.

Experimental dynamic analysis of nonlinear beams under moving loads

It is well known that nonlinear systems, as well as linear time-varying systems, are characterized by non-stationary response signals. In this sense, they both show natural frequencies that are not constant over time; this variation has however different origins: for a time-varying system the mass, and possibly the stiffness distributions, are changing over time, while for a nonlinear system the natural frequencies are amplitude-dependent. An interesting case of time-varying system occurs when analyzing the transit of a train over a railway bridge, easily simulated by the crossing of a moving load over a beam. In this case, the presence of a nonlinearity in the beam behaviour can cause a significant alteration of the modal parameters extracted from the linearized model, such that the contributions of the two effects are no more distinguishable.