Direct Linear System Identification Method for Multistory Three-dimensional Building Structure with General Eccentricity

A method of physical parameter system identification (SI) is proposed here for threedimensional (3D) building structures with in-plane rigid floors in which the stiffness and damping coefficients of each structural frame in the 3D building structure are identified from the measured floor horizontal accelerations. A batch processing least-squares estimation method for many discrete time domain measured data is proposed for the direct identification of the stiffness and damping coefficients of each structural frame. Although previous researches on the SI of 3D building structures are limited to a class of structures with regular eccentricity, this article removes this limitation. Advantageous features of the proposed identification method are that it is unnecessary to specify the stiffness eccentricities (location of the center of stiffness) before identification, and the identification of all stiffness and damping parameters can be performed simultaneously. The reliability and accuracy of the proposed method are demonstrated by numerical simulations.