Grey-box direct identification of structures based on continuous-time models

Life cycle monitoring of civil engineering structures is nowadays becoming an active field of research, driven by the need to complement subjective visual inspection methods by objective nondestructive evaluation tools, based on physical measurements and computer complex simulations and analyses. In many research studies, the monitoring has been based on identification methods. In the first part of this paper, a synthetic survey of models identification for some typical civil engineering structure based on lumped parametric models is briefly reviewed. For life cycle monitoring purposes, this paper is focusing on a new procedure, based on continuous-time parametric model using a grey-box estimation model. In order to apply the procedure in dynamic simulations and seismic analysis, the authors are presenting the theoretical approach. For the practical application of this procedure, a case study has been numerically investigated. The obtained numerical results have been leading to complete structural information, validating this procedure and illustrating its advantages.