Time-Varying Wind Load Identification Based on Minimum-Variance Unbiased Estimation

A minimum-variance unbiased estimation method is developed to identify the time-varying wind load from measured responses. The formula derivation of recursive identification equations is obtained in state space. The new approach can simultaneously estimate the entire wind load and the unknown structural responses only with limited measurement of structural acceleration response. The fluctuating wind speed process is investigated by the autoregressive (AR) model method in time series analysis. The accuracy and feasibility of the inverse approach are numerically investigated by identifying the wind load on a twenty-story shear building structure. The influences of the number and location of accelerometers are examined and discussed. In order to study the stability of the proposed method, the effects of the errors in crucial factors such as natural frequency and damping ratio are discussed through detailed parametric analysis. It can be found from the identification results that the proposed method can identify the wind load from limited measurement of acceleration responses with good accuracy and stability, indicating that it is an effective approach for estimating wind load on building structures.