Recent advances in uncertainty quantification in structural response characterization and system identification

Structural dynamics has numerous practical applications, such as structural analysis, vibration control, energy harvesting, system identification, structural safety assessment, and structural design optimization. While extensive efforts have been dedicated to improving application performance, these studies are typically implemented in a deterministic manner, ignoring uncertainties that arise from numerical model inadequacy, and inherent randomness and stochastic operation conditions in experimental setup and measurement. However, uncertainties can play a significant role in many circumstances. Therefore, developing a unified numerical or experimental platform that can account for the inherent uncertainty effect, the so-called uncertainty quantification (UQ) analysis, is highly urged to pursue the success of actual engineering practices. Since UQ analysis follows similar architecture and underlying idea among the different applications in structural dynamics, this article aims to provide a concise review of recent advances and achievements in UQ analysis limited to the areas of structural response characterization and system identification, discussing particular types of applications, UQ algorithms and frameworks, and respective outcomes and contributions. The article also highlights the remaining challenges and proposed solutions for potential improvements.