Title: A hybrid simulation approach for aeroelastic wind tunnel testing: challenges and foundational work

Authors: Azin Ghaffary; Elif Ecem Bas; Mohamed A. Moustafa

Addresses: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N Virginia St, Reno, NV 89557, USA ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N Virginia St, Reno, NV 89557, USA ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N Virginia St, Reno, NV 89557, USA

Abstract: Wind real-time hybrid simulation (wRTHS) is an evolving approach that can be utilised to improve current wind tunnel testing approaches. While RTHS has been extensively used for earthquake engineering applications, this paper aims at building on such knowledge to assess the performance of a typical RTHS setup for conducting future wRTHS. Wind loads form the Tokyo Polytechnic database are used to represent a hypothetical wind tunnel force that are applied in real-time to scaled numerical models of four building structures with different breadth to height aspect ratios, one of them being controlled by a tuned mass damper, to calculate deformed shape of the building and reflect such deformation using a hydraulic actuator. Given the different way of substructuring the equation of motion and frequency content of wind loads versus earthquakes, the test results indicate the validity and efficiency of the proposed hardware, software, and transfer system for future wRTHS.

Keywords: real-time hybrid simulation; RTHS; wind loads; computational modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLCPE.2020.108942

International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering, 2020 Vol.4 No.1/2/3, pp.46 - 79

Received: 22 Mar 2019
Accepted: 27 Oct 2019
Published online: 10 Aug 2020 *

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