Interoperability between BIM and FEM for vibration-based model updating of a pedestrian bridge

Finite Element Model (FEM) updating is the procedure of minimizing errors between the experimental measurements and response simulated by FEMs. It can lead to more accurate and representative models useful to perform forecast analysis or detect initial damage thresholds for structures and infrastructure. The paper investigates the potentialities to carry out an automatic model updating through the interoperability between FEMs, Building Information Modeling (BIM), and experimentally vibration-based information. Indeed, these latter possess details and data (geometrical or mechanical) that could be automatically transferred in a numerical environment for structural modeling. The ability of this exchange is assessed by a methodology applied to a pedestrian walkway. The first path utilizes the geometrical data coming from a BIM model of the walkway to achieve three different levels of meshing. Consequently, three accurate finite element modeling have been pursued based on the achieved discretization. For each model, the accuracy and cost analysis has been evaluated considering the minimal distance between the main experimental modal parameters, identified from output-only dynamic tests, and the numerical ones, obtained after manual model updating. Additionally, a second path attempts to realize an automatic model updating through a simplified representative numerical system of the walkway implemented in Matlab. To this end, first, an opportune algorithm has been developed capable of processing the data and information from both BIM and experimental identification. Second, once the numerical model is realized, the potentiality of a modified Particle Swarm Optimization for improving the structural representativeness has been assessed. In particular, the usefulness of this approach could be related to a smart management system of the structures and infrastructure through a corresponding digital twin model.