Online Modal Identification of Concrete Dams Using the Subspace Tracking-Based Method

Abstract

To investigate the time-varying dynamic characteristics of concrete dams under the excitation of large earthquakes for online structural health monitoring and damage evaluation, an online modal identification procedure based on strong-motion records is proposed. The online modal identification of concrete dams is expressed as a subspace tracking problem, and a newly developed recursive stochastic subspace identification (RSSI) method based on the generalized yet another subspace tracker (GYAST) algorithm, which exploits both the accuracy of the subspace identification and fast computational capability, is used to extract the time-varying modal parameters of concrete dams during earthquakes. With the simulated vibration response records, a numerical example is used to verify the accuracy, robustness, and efficiency of the proposed GYAST-based, time-varying modal identification method. Then, the realistic strong-motion records of the Pacoima arch dam are analysed using the proposed modal identification procedure, and the time-varying characteristics of the concrete arch dam during three different earthquakes are analysed.