Fatemeh Zahedi Tajrishi - School of Civil Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Mazandaran, Iran
Alireza Mirza Goltabar Roshan - School of Civil Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Mazandaran, Iran

This paper presents an optimal sensor placement method for structural modal identification in a strapbraced cold formed steel frame using an improved genetic algorithm (IGA). Different fitness functions have been considered and the decimal two-dimension array coding method instead of binary codingmethod is applied to code the solution. Forced mutation operator is applied and an improvement is also introduced to mutation operator to avoid different sensors to be placed on one location. A verifiedcomputational simulation of a strap-braced cold formed steel frame model has been implemented todemonstrate the effectiveness and application of the proposed method. The obtained optimal sensor placements using IGA are compared with those gained by the conventional methods. The results showed that the IGA applied in this paper can provide sensor locations as well as the conventional methods and most of the fitness functions can identify the vibration characteristics of the frame model accurately

Optimal sensor placement, Improved genetic algorithm, cold formed steel, Strap brace,Modal analysis