Probabilistic Graphical Model using Graph Neural Networks for Bayesian Inversion of Discrete Structural Component States

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Teng, Wu, Stephen, Huang, Yong, Beck, James L., Li, Hui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Li, Teng
Wu, Stephen
Huang, Yong
Beck, James L.
Li, Hui
author_facet Li, Teng
Wu, Stephen
Huang, Yong
Beck, James L.
Li, Hui
contents The health condition of components in civil infrastructures can be described by various discrete states according to their performance degradation. Inferring these states from measurable responses is typically an ill-posed inverse problem. Although Bayesian methods are well-suited to tackle such problems, computing the posterior probability density function (PDF) presents challenges. The likelihood function cannot be analytically formulated due to the unclear relationship between discrete states and structural responses, and the high-dimensional state parameters resulting from numerous components severely complicates the computation of the marginal likelihood function. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel Bayesian inversion paradigm for discrete variables based on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGMs). The Markov networks are employed as modeling tools, with model parameters learned from data and structural topology prior. It has been proved that inferring this PGM produces the same probabilistic estimation as the posterior PDF derived from Bayesian inference, which effectively solves the above challenges. The inference is accomplished by Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), and a graph property-based GNN training strategy is developed to enable accurate inference across varying graph scales, thereby significantly reducing the computational overhead in high-dimensional problems. Both synthetic and experimental data are used to validate the proposed framework
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_23514
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probabilistic Graphical Model using Graph Neural Networks for Bayesian Inversion of Discrete Structural Component States
Li, Teng
Wu, Stephen
Huang, Yong
Beck, James L.
Li, Hui
Machine Learning
Methodology
The health condition of components in civil infrastructures can be described by various discrete states according to their performance degradation. Inferring these states from measurable responses is typically an ill-posed inverse problem. Although Bayesian methods are well-suited to tackle such problems, computing the posterior probability density function (PDF) presents challenges. The likelihood function cannot be analytically formulated due to the unclear relationship between discrete states and structural responses, and the high-dimensional state parameters resulting from numerous components severely complicates the computation of the marginal likelihood function. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel Bayesian inversion paradigm for discrete variables based on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGMs). The Markov networks are employed as modeling tools, with model parameters learned from data and structural topology prior. It has been proved that inferring this PGM produces the same probabilistic estimation as the posterior PDF derived from Bayesian inference, which effectively solves the above challenges. The inference is accomplished by Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), and a graph property-based GNN training strategy is developed to enable accurate inference across varying graph scales, thereby significantly reducing the computational overhead in high-dimensional problems. Both synthetic and experimental data are used to validate the proposed framework
title Probabilistic Graphical Model using Graph Neural Networks for Bayesian Inversion of Discrete Structural Component States
topic Machine Learning
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23514