Tips, Tricks, and Obscure Features for Modal Parameter Estimation

A good piece of advice for those who engage in modal parameter estimation is “Don’t use data that doesn’t help your cause.” Selecting the frequency range of interest and down-selecting the references and responses are common features in all commercial modal analysis software packages. While these procedures are usually sufficient for producing acceptable results, there are some supplemental techniques available that go beyond just defining the temporal and spatial boundaries of the dataset. This chapter discusses some of these more obscure features that could be helpful in improving your modal parameter estimation results.