Experimental Data for Uncertainty Quantification

The propagation of parameter uncertainty through a model to obtain the uncertain vibration response is becoming more practical for industrial scale finite element models due to the increase in computing power available. In some cases the parametric uncertainty may be measured directly, for example the thickness of a panel. However the parameters for joint models (for example) must be estimated from measurements using the techniques of finite element model updating. In these cases the techniques of model updating must be extended to allow for uncertainty quantification from a series of measurements on nominally identically structures. The validation of these methods requires laboratory experiments where the uncertain parameter is measured directly and also estimated by updating. This paper outlines the results of experiments that may be used for this purpose, namely a moving mass on a free-free beam and a copper pipe with uncertain internal pressure. The data from these experiments will be freely available on the associated website at Bristol