ABSTRACT
The goal of structural system identification research is to develop a mathematical model for a structural system based on a set of inputs and corresponding output measurements.
When structures are damaged during a strong ground motion changes occur to their dynamic characteristics. Structural system identification finds applications in 1) determination of the structural properties such as the stiffness and natural periods and
frequencies, 2) nondestructive damage evaluations, where input-output measurements are used to assess nondestructively the damage severity and location in an existing structure,
3) health monitoring of the global or local conditions of structures, and 4) structural
control of smart structures which requires evaluation of dynamic response of structures with various structural rigidities, masses, and damping (Saleh and Adeli 1998a; Adeli and
Saleh 1999). The complicated mechanics of earthquake and the significant expense associated
with detailed measurements of structural response make accurate system identification of
structures a challenging problem. This problem has attracted the attention of a good number of researchers in recent years. A review of the state of the art up to 1995 is
presented by Ghanem and Shinozuka (1995). Examples of recent work are Chassiakos and Masri (1996), Gurley and Kareem (1999), Loh et al. (2000), Masri et al. (2000), Hung et al. (2003), Kijewski and Kareem (2003), Jiang and Adeli (2005a), Adeli and Jiang (2006) , and Jiang et al. (2007).
