A Rayleigh-Ritz approach to structural parameter identification

This paper is concerned with the identification of parameter distributions in large space structures. The formulation is based on a Rayleigh-Ritz type approach working with the actual displacement at a given number of points in the structure. The parameter distributions are expanded in terms of known admissible functions multiplied by unknown coefficients, and the identification process reduces to the determination of these coefficients. The procedure uses a perturbation approach, beginning with a postulated set of parameters and iterating to the actual values in an incremental fashion.