Development of Hybrid Simulation System With a General Fem Software and Ui-Simcor At Low-Temperature Environment

Abstract eng:
In these 20 years after Kobe Earthquake in Japan, seismic devices such as rubber bearing, seismic damper and other additional devices have been rapidly developed and they have been installed to bridges to improve their seismic performance. Seismic performance of bridges with seismic devices is commonly evaluated by numerical simulation. To establish numerical model of the bridge, the seismic device must be modeled properly. However stiffness and damping of such devices are nonlinear and their formulation needs many cases of loading tests and careful consideration for modeling. Moreover these devices often use materials which has thermal dependency, and it is concerned that these seismic performance deteriorates at winter season in cold region. Substructured hybrid simulation is effective for development of such devices with combination of numerical simulation and physical experiments. Whole of structures including steel and concrete members are modeled in numerical simulation with FEM software. Novel developed devices are tested simultaneously in loading facilities. Therefore, a substructured hybrid simulation system for low-temperature environment was developed in this study. The developed system utilized an open-source pseudo-dynamic simulation system UI-SIMCOR and a sub-program which could cooperate with existent loading facility in a cold room was developed. The capacity of the loading facility was 300kN for static loading and it was able to operate in -30 degree in Celsius. To enhance usability of the system, another sub-program was also developed for application of general FEM software. A simulation for a simple girder model with a seismic damper was performed. A girder model was consisted of 5 beam elements with supports at its ends. This girder was modeled by a general FEM software. A seismic device was connected to an intermediate node of the girder model. This seismic device was an experimental part of the hybrid simulation system. To confirm working the system properly, linear steel springs were installed instead of a seismic damper. Then after the pretest, a seismic damper was installed to evaluate seismic performance of the whole structure. In the hybrid simulation, dynamic response of the damper was obtained as a part of whole structure and friction type displacement-force hysteresis curve was properly obtained. The maximum displacement was reduced 80% by energy dissipation of the damper. The result of the simulation was not affected by low temperature because the damper was stable to low temperature as shown in previous studies. Hence, the system was able to work properly as a substructured hybrid simulation facility at a low-temperature environment.

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