The effect of thermal on the structural dynamic response is gaining attention, and should be taken into account during model updating. Meanwhile, metamodel technique is applied to be a surrogate model for its low computational cost. In this work, the structural model updating under thermal field is investigated, an attempt has been made to combine Kriging metamodel and frequency response function based model updating. The Kriging model, taken as a surrogate, is constructed based on the input variables selected by F-test method, which is applied on the results of design of experiment. The errors of response signal between analytical model and experimental model are used to create response of design of experiment. The performed example demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach. KEYWORDS frequency response signal, metamodel, model updating, thermal preload Int J Adapt Control Signal Process. 2019;33:1257-1264.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/acs