An iterative approach to viscous damping matrix identification

A method has been designed to calculate the damping matrix of a structural system given only limited information about the structure. The method presented is an iterative procedure that is valid for all damping matrices in which the eigenvalues occur in complex conjugate pairs for small damping. The results are accurate and can be used as a good estimate even for slightly noisy data. Existing methods are limited and provide only a rough estimate of the damping matric. The proposed technique is intended to use experimentally obtained eigenvalues and eigenvectors as well as an analytical mass matrix to solve for the damping matrix. To illustrate the procedure, an example is presented where the exact solution is known in advance and convergence to this solution using the iteration procedure can be seen. The results are a useful tool in areas such as damage detection and diagnostics of structures.