System identification via Fast Relaxed Vector Fitting for the Structural Health Monitoring of masonry bridges

The increasingly request for the maintenance of architectural heritage has led in last decades to extensive use System Identification (SI) techniques Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) purposes. These proved be useful tools assessing state conservation built environment and its behaviour operating conditions. In particular, historical masonry structures infrastructures present several compelling difficulties. Masonry is non-linear mechanical properties are uncertain due presence local irregularities internal texture. Moreover, centuries-old buildings severely affected by deterioration, eventual restoration interventions, exposure weather this work, Fast Relaxed Vector Fitting (FRVF) approach proposed as a rapid, efficient, reliable instrument vibration-based SI such structures. method preliminarily validated on simple numerical examples multi-damaged cantilevered box beam, then tested true 1:2 scaled model two-span arch bridge. results match well estimations from other well-established techniques, Eigensystem Realization Algorithm (ERA), can utilised damage assessment (with all standard advantages limitations modal-based outlier detection). Stabilisation diagrams frequency-damping plots also FRVF.