Geographically Distributed Real-Time Hybrid Simulation of MR Dampers for Seismic Hazard Mitigation

In the field of earthquake engineering, and more generally in structural dynamics and control, experimental verification is critical. For large structural systems, full-scale experimental tests may not be economically or practically feasible. However, hybrid simulation (where the simulation is partitioned into numerical and physical components), provides the capability to isolate and physically test critical components of a structure in an efficient manner, while still fully capturing the dynamic behavior of an interaction with the entire structural system. Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) conducts these tests in hard, real-time to ensure that any rate-dependant characteristics of the physical component are accurately represented. Furthermore, testing at multiple geographically distributed laboratories can optimize the use of distributed resources found in the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) equipment facilities. Leveraging multiple equipment sites for RTHS poses great challenges due to the hard real-time nature of RTHS and the inherent and unpredictable network delay associated with geographically distributed testing. This paper describes the framework, sensitivity analysis, and resulting tests of a series of geographically distributed RTHS successfully conducted between the University of Connecticut (UConn) and the University of Illinois (Illinois).