NEESR Project Website
NEESR-SG: Performance-Based Design and Real-time Large-scale Testing to Enable Implementation of Advanced Damping Systems
Project Team Members
Link – [1]
Research Highlights
Link – [2]
Education Activities
Link – [3]
Project Description
Advanced damping systems have demonstrated great promise for seismic hazard mitigation. The adaptability of structures using these versatile devices to severe loading conditions is expected to facilitate major advances in our ability to achieve performance-based design of structures. However, such innovative systems have been slow to get into practice due to a lack of appropriate design procedures and adequate testing methods to validate these systems. While limited isolated large-scale tests on smart damping devices have been performed, the systems have only been evaluated using scaled models and shake table tests, which are inadequate for large-scale validation of the structural systems. Current models have considered the device alone under a limited set of conditions, and do not account for some of the issues that are essential for selecting appropriate device sizes and developing connections.
Effective implementation of this technology will require establishing and validating performance-based design methodologies that best exploit their unique damping capabilities. Large-scale testing for model validation and performance assessment can best be achieved through pseudo dynamic test methods on large scale structures. However, when these dampers are integrated into a structural system, they exhibit several types of complex behaviors that cannot adequately be reproduced at less than real-time. Recently developed real-time pseudo dynamic (PSD) and hybrid testing methods allow greater abilities regarding the types of structures and systems that can be tested. To realize the NEES vision of real-time, large-scale PSD and hybrid testing, these methods need to be validated for complex structural systems, specifically those including three dimensional motions, large-scale, nonlinear hysteretic structural elements, and rate dependent components.
These are compelling reasons for conducting an integrated study focusing on large-scale testing of structures equipped with such damping devices to: i) demonstrate a typical performance-based design methodology for a structural system employing advanced damping devices; ii) validate an appropriate large-scale testing technique for validation and acceptance of new damping systems; iii) validate novel real-time pseudo dynamic testing methodologies for large-scale structural systems in this class; iv) establish improved device models and control algorithms appropriate for model-based simulation studies; and v) educate practitioners and students on these technologies, enabling implementation of advanced damping systems in the US. Magnetorheological fluid devices, a particularly promising damping system, will be used in the experiments to leverage prior funding. With proper use these devices can also mimic a wide variety of passive damping systems, allowing for establishment of a testbed for future researchers.
