Real-time Dynamic Hybrid Testing of Structural Systems

The development and implementation of a novel structural testing method involving the combined use of shake tables, actuators, and computational engines for the seismic simulation of structures is presented herein. The hybrid simulation is intended to discover through physical testing the behavior of parts or whole substructure assemblies for which knowledge is limited, while the known parts of the structural system can be simulated analytically. The result of the hybrid simulation provides information of the entire system without need for whole system testing. The structure to be simulated is divided into one, or more, experimental and computational substructures. The interface forces between the experimental and computational substructures are imposed by actuators and resulting displacements and velocities are fed back to the computational engine. The earthquake ground motion is applied to the experimental substructures by shake tables. The unique aspect of the above hybrid system is force-based substructuring. The hybrid simulation can be implemented as pseudodynamic or real time dynamic methods. While the former has a long history of applications, while the latter was developed recently owing to the availability of newest technologies and investments done by the George E Brown Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulations.