Vibrations are ubiquitous in everyday life. They may often have undesirable effects such as noise disturbances or may even cause the ruin of a structure. The last three decades have thus witnessed a tremendous interest in a better understanding of the structural dynamic behaviour. In a nutshell, we could say that modal analysis is a process whereby we describe a structure in terms of its natural characteristics which are the frequency, damping and mode shapes. It is dynamic properties, identified by different ways (theoretical, numerical, experimental), which have become a major concern of structural dynamicists. This field of research is referred to as modal analysis in the technical literature and relies on two important assumptions: linearity and time invariance of the structure. The knowledge of the modal parameters can serve various purposes including structural modification, assessment of the structural integrity and reliability, structural health monitoring and model updating.

This course covers a large field of knowledge, including dynamic signals and systems, vibration signal processing, dynamic models and modal concept, applications of modal analysis, vibration isolation, and dynamic vibration absorbers and auxiliary mass dampers.