The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Development of substructuring techniques for on-line computer controlled seismic performance testing

Dermitzakis, Stavros N.; Mahin, Stephen A.

UCB/EERC-85/04, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1985-02, 153 pages (550.3/D47/1985)

A method for applying substructuring concepts to on-line computer-controlled (pseudodynamic) testing is developed so that analytical subassemblages can be combined with a physical test assemblage to simulate the seismic response of the complete system. Numerical algorithms are developed for use in analytical substructuring. Their reliability is investigated by means of pseudodynamic tests of several specimens. The results of these tests are presented and discussed and their correlation with analytical simulations is evaluated. The theory behind the pseudodynamic method and its purposes and advantages are explained. The theoretical background of substructuring techniques is then formulated and the characteristics of the integration methods involved in the substructuring algorithms are presented and discussed. Numerical stability criteria governing the selection of the integration method and propagation of experimental feedback errors in the substructuring algorithms are investigated. Pseudodynamic tests of several multiple degree-of-freedom systems performed to verify the substructuring techniques are described.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-85-04.pdf (6 MB)