ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Earthquake Engineering
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1671758
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Structural Health Monitoring and Damage Detection for Earthquake-Resilient StructuresView all articles
Revisiting Damping Identification: Limitations and Comparative Evaluation Under Impulse, White Noise, and Seismic Excitations
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
- 2Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, China
- 3Kyoto Daigaku, Kyoto, Japan
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Eigensystem Realization Algorithm (ERA), Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI), Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT), and Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition (EFDD) are four widely used damping identification methods. Their performance remains unclear in previous reviews and comparative discussions. This uncertainty can be attributed to three critical factors: the varying behavior of different methods under different excitations, the lack of a clear benchmark for evaluating accuracy, and the unquantified influence of parameter tuning on results. This study revisits and evaluates these methods under controlled conditions and addresses the key challenges that hinder reliable damping identification. A major challenge identified is the sensitivity of the results to parameter settings, which significantly impacts the stability and accuracy of the identification. Based on the evaluation, recommended methods and corresponding parameter guidelines are provided for three common excitation scenarios: impulse, white noise, and earthquakes. This study offers practical guidance for the selection and application of damping identification methods in structural dynamics.
Keywords: Damping identification, eigensystem realization algorithm, Stochastic SubspaceIdentification, continuous wavelet transform, Enhanced frequency domain decomposition, Parameter setting
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Lee, Shen and Guo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chin-Long Lee, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
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