Education

Education

ACTIVE VIBRATION CONTROL IN THREE-STORY BUILDING

This MATLAB exmaple considers an Active Mass Driver (AMD) control system for vibration isolation in a three-story experimental structure. This setup is used to assess control design techniques for increasing safety of civil engineering structures during earthquakes. The structure consists of three stories with an active mass driver on the top floor which is used to attenuate ground disturbances. This application is borrowed from "Benchmark Problems in Structural Control: Part I – Active Mass Driver System," B.F. Spencer Jr., S.J. Dyke, and H.S. Deoskar, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 27(11), 1998, pp. 1127-1139.

VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING

This page is a starting point for Virtual Laboratories for Earthquake Engineering (VLEE). The VLEE is a project of the Smart Structures Technology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The purpose of these Virtual Laboratories is to provide an interactive framework for students and practitioners to gain fundamental understanding and intuition regarding a wide range of topics in earthquake engineering.

Two widely used methods for mitigating structural vibration due to natural hazards such as wind and earthquakes are active mass driver/tuned mass damper systems and base isolation. Four Java-powered simulations are provided here to explore some of the issues in design of these structural control systems. These programs can calculate and animate the structural responses of a simple building model under the El Centro, Hachinohe, Northridge and Kobe earthquakes. Furthermore, transfer functions of the uncontrolled and controlled systems may be viewed. You can vary the structure and control/isolation parameters and do "what if" studies to understand the effects of varying the control/isolation systems.

Note that you will need to install the latest Java Runtime Environment(JRE) to use the virtual lab. You must also be using Internet Explorer and add a JAVA exception to http://sstl.cee.illinois.edu/

Partial funding of the development of these simulators was provided by the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.

• Y. Gao, G. Yang, B.F. Spencer, Jr., and G.C. Lee, "Java-Powered Virtual Laboratories for Earthquake Engineering Education," MCEER Research Progress and Accomplishments 2003-2004, MCEER, pp. 187-203, 2004 (Also accepted by the Journal of Computer Applications in Engineering Education).
• S. H. Sim, B. F. Spencer, Jr., and G. C. Lee, "Virtual Laboratory for Experimental Structural Dynamics," Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 17(1), pp. 80-88, 2009.

VIRTUAL EXPERIMENTS

The following virtual experiments are currently available:
(Tip: Hold down "Ctrl" key and click "Help" button on the Virtual Labs if you use a popup blocker.)

Structural Control using TMDs and AMDs: This virtual experiment allows you to compare the effect of using two different control systems to reduce structural response of an "uncontrolled" structure subjected to earthquake excitation. The two control systems, chosen because of the widespread interest in this class of systems, are the tuned mass damper (TMD) and the hybrid mass damper (HMD). For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the simulator.

Linear Base Isolation: This virtual experiment allows you to study the effectiveness of base isolation to reduce the seismic demands on a structure. The simulator models a building as a single degree-of-freedom system with linear isolators For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Nonlinear Base Isolation: This virtual experiment allows you to study the effectiveness of base isolation to reduce the seismic demands on a structure. The simulator models a building as a single degree-of-freedom system with various types of nonlinear isolators. For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Nonlinear Two Story Building: This virtual experiment allows you to conduct nonlinear dynamic analysis for a two story building. The building is modeled as a two degree-of-freedom system with various types of nonlinear models for each story. For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Nonlinear Multiple Story Building: This virtual experiment allows you to conduct nonlinear dynamic analysis for a multiple story building. The building is modeled as a multi-degree-of-freedom system with various types of nonlinear models for each story. For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Experimental Structural Dynamics (optimized for 1280*1024, 1024*768): This virtual experiment allows you to conduct virtual experiments of shear building models. This software utilizes a multi-story shear building model as the test bed and computes various spectral characteristics of the building based on the structural responses obtained through the linear/nonlinear dynamic analysis. For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Earthquake Engineering: illustrates three important concepts in Earthquake Engineering; response spectrum analysis of high-rise buildings, design spectrum, and force reduction factor. For more detailed information, click here or on the help button after you launch the experiment.

Note that you will need to install the latest Java Runtime Environment(JRE) to use the virtual lab. You must also be using Internet Explorer and add a JAVA exception to http://sstl.cee.illinois.edu/

Any questions or comments regarding these animations may be directed to Prof. B.F. Spencer, Jr. at bfs@illinois.edu.

Page designed by Vedhus Hoskere; Last updated on 3/20/2016. Copyright © 2008 SSTL at UIUC. All rights reserved.