Feasibility Study on the Real-Time Hybrid Simulation of a Building Mass Damper System using a Shaking Table

Feasibility Study on the Real-Time Hybrid Simulation of a Building Mass Damper System using a Shaking Table

A building mass damper (BMD) system, which incorporates the concept of a tuned mass damper into a mid-story isolation system, has been proposed to control the seismic response of both a superstructure and substructure. The effectiveness of the BMD system may only be verified via shaking table testing with limited design parameters in which the superstructure and substructure must remain elastic such that repeated tests can be conducted. Therefore, real-time hybrid simulations (RTHSs) may provide an alternative method for evaluating the seismic performances of BMD systems subjected to earthquake ground motions. In this study, a BMD system is separated into a numerical substructure and a physical substructure. The physical substructure includes the control layer and the superstructure of the BMD system installed on a seismic shake table, while the substructure is numerically simulated. The stability margin is represented as a mass ratio relating the physical substructure to the numerical substructure. The results can provide valuable information for conducting parametric studies of BMD systems via RTHSs in the future.