Automatic Parameter Setting of Random Decrement Technique for the Estimation of Building Modal Parameters

This paper examines the use of the Random Decrement Technique (RDT) for the estimation of building modal parameters, in particular the natural frequency and the damping ratio. It focuses on establishing the processing parameters one must specify to use the technique to its best advantage. This work is motivated by the high influence of these parameters on the RDT quality. Despite the widespread use of the RDT and the enormous effort for understanding the choice of its parameters, no work has been done on how to automate this selection. From this point, this paper comes out with a proposition of an automatic procedure to guide up the choice of these parameters. The results of this paper, on simulated and real-world ambient vibrations, indicate that the proposed automatic setting procedure of the different parameters of the RDT has opened the way to more reliable results and much credible estimation of the modal parameters.