The Bi-Axial Testing System in the Tainan Laboratory of Taiwan’s National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering

The Bi-Axial Testing System in the Tainan Laboratory of Taiwan’s National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering

The bi-axial testing system(BATS) is a major facility constructed in the Tainan laboratory of Taiwan’s National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering(NCREE) in 2017. The multi-axial testing system(MATS) constructed in 2008 in NCREE’s Taipei laboratory allowed a large variety of structural tests to be successfully conducted with fruitful results. However, the longitudinal actuators adopted in the MATS are of a static type with small servo valves. In view of this, the NCREE team constructed the Tainan laboratory in National Cheng Kung University, which includes the high-performance BATS. In order to meet the requirements of high-speed and long-stroke tests, the BATS is designed to allow simultaneous application of horizontal forces, with high horizontal velocities, large displacements, and large vertical forces on the test specimen. The specimen can be anchored between the top cross beam and the bottom rigid platen within a 2-m-tall and 3.1-m-wide clear space. In addition to the four horizontal dynamic actuators in the longitudinal direction, a total of fifteen servo-hydraulic actuators are connected to the rigid platen. The design, construction, and key features of the BATS are described in this paper.