Daniele Spina

Experimental Modal Analysis for Damage Detection of Buildings via Gabor Transform Technique

The paper presents the revised formulation of a signal processing methodology aimed at identifying the dynamics of buildings hit by earthquakes. The methodology is based on the Gabor joint time-frequency representation and allows to identify an evolutionary modal model whose time changes are used to evaluate the damage presence and severity. Dynamic tests are performed in advance to provide reference values and their confidence ranges used for the assessment of the results. The methodology has been extensively applied to the buildings belonging to the Italian national network of seismic structural monitoring. A sample application referred to a representative reinforced concrete buildings is shown.

Model updating of Pescara Benchmark: interval vs. traditional method

In this work FE model updating is used to detect parameter variations from representative models of the Pescara benchmark beams. For a considered series of the beams experimental modal data are available at a certain beam stage. For this stage model updating results are obtained and different updating techniques are compared. Standard techniques based on parameters sensitivity calculation are applied and, in this case, commercial robust software and self-implemented are used. A new interval model updating approach is also applied to possibly cope with experimental uncertainties and parameters variability. The interval algorithm automatically gives a bound of the results; on the contrary sensitivity approach gives a crisp result. Hence, to have a proper comparison, a mid term comparison is also given from the calculated interval solution.