AN IMPROVED METHOD FOR PARAMETER SELECTION IN FINITE-ELEMENT MODEL UPDATING

Conventional wisdom states that coordinate complete experimental respo nse data are required to effect a successful model update. This paper examines the influence measured rotational degrees of freedom have on the behaviour of the frequency response function (FRF) sensitivity upd ating procedure. Three finite element (FE) model-based case studies ar e undertaken which suggest that very little improvement is afforded by the inclusion of measured rotations in the updating process. Error-lo cation strategies in the past have yielded little qualitative informat ion about the optimum selection of updating parameters in the model up dating procedure. Two further cases are investigated; these suggest th at no amount of coordinate completeness will rectify the debilitating effects of an inadequate p-value choice. A method of selecting the num ber and location of updating parameters - based on the FRF sensitivity method - is presented. This method is shown to yield promising result s.