Parameter identification of a reinforced concrete T-beam bridge

Parameter identification based on model updating is one of the most important links in Structural Identification. The benefits of combining finite element (FE) analysis with on-site measurement through model updating are significant and growing as more reliable experimental, modeling and model correlation approaches become available. The authors have successfully applied Structural Identification to numerous bridges over the past decade. However, manual model updating of structural parameters has significantly limited the application of model updating on large infrastructures. The methodology proposed within aims to use the Application Programming Interface (API) function in the Strand7 FE software package to automatically update selected parameters using Matlab. The proposed methodology was applied to a three span, simply supported T-beam bridge. Both the elastic modulus for the global structure and the crack height of the primary girders were utilized as updateable parameters in two separate cases. The results show that the average crack height parameter reproduced the static measurements with a high degree of accuracy and is a reasonable parameter choice for this class of structure.