Development of a Real-Time On-Line Vibration Testing System by Substructuring Method.

On-line testing is a useful way to investigate nonlinear dynamic behavior of structures subjected to seismic excitation. The pseudo-dynamic testing methed is usually used for the on-line testing, in which the time duration in testing to realize the deformation within one time increment is much longer than that in calculation. However, to obtain the dynamic reaction force from on-line testing, the real-time excitation is required. For this purpose, we developed a real-time on-line testing system controlled by a parallel processor with high-speed A/D and D/A converters. The real-time controller can simulate the seismic response of structural models with up to 100 degrees of freedom within the frequency range of 10 Hz. The applicability of the real-time on-line testing method was verified by a comparative shaking table test.