Real-time substructuring technique for the shaking table test of upper substructures

In this study, a real-time substructuring technique for the shaking table test is proposed. The proposed technique adopts the upper part of the object structure as the experimental substructure and the lower part as the numerical substructure. The force exerted on the interface of the two separated substructures is calculated on-line using the feed-back from an absolute floor acceleration measurement. The acceleration at the interface of the two substructures is calculated through an on-line time history analysis of the numerical substructure and is used as a reference signal in the shaking table controller. The inverse transfer function of the shaking table is employed to minimize the errors between the reference signal and generated ground motion for the experimental substructure. Through a shaking table test, the validity and accuracy of the proposed technique is demonstrated, and a good agreement between experimental and numerical results is obtained.