Applications of dynamic measurements to structural reliability updating

The present paper proposes a method for updating the assessment of reliability. It is based on the formulation of additional events. Note is made of the existence of changes in the dynamic behavior of a system due to perturbation of the basic design variables. An additional event is formulated based on a comparison between the natural frequencies of a system obtained by a theoretical (analytic or numerical) method and those obtained from an experimental modal analysis. Given the differences between theoretical and experimental values, a corrective factor is then introduced in the form of a new random variable. The characteristic values of this new variable are determined. Finally the effectiveness of the method is illustrated by an example.