Study On Hybrid Simulation Of Viscoelastic Dampers

In this paper a hybrid simulation method was developed for the dynamic response of structures with strongly nonlinear damper. The dynamic response of the linear part in the structure was simulated by the numerical computation while the response of nonlinear unit was tested directly on test machine. The parameters from numerical simulation and machine test on every sub-step were transmitted between test machine controller and the simulation software by computer communication technology. This simulation method can be effectively applied to the dynamic analysis of large complicated structure with strongly nonlinear unit. The contents and conclusions are as follows:(1)The data communication interface software between PCS8000 controller and numerical software were developed by C++. With this software the reaction force of the nonlinear unit from test machine can be transmitted to the numerical software for iterative calculation in real time and the displacement and velocity of the damper calculated by the numerical software can be fed back to the controller to actuate the actuator with the displacement and velocity controlling for every sub-step.(2)A kind of shear rubber damper was designed and the mechanical characters of the damper was studied.(3)A hybrid simulation system including electro-hydraulic dynamic test machine controlled by PCS8000, simulation software developed with MATLAB and the communication interface software was set up.(4) The feasibility and stability of the hybrid simulation was validated by comparing the results from the hybrid simulation test and the numerical simulation.The dynamic responses of single degree-of-freedom structure with damper both under simple harmonic wave and artificial seismic wave were studied respectively. The response curves between the hybrid simulation and the numerical simulation were fitted well both in these two cases.(5)The error sources of hybrid simulation test were carried out. By theoretical and experimental analysis, the influence of algorithm, actuator delay, loading velocity and loading method on the error of the test were discussed and some suggestions on reducing error were also presented.