Simulated Seismic Laboratory Load Testing of Full-Scale Buildings

Abstract

Full-scale building systems have been tested to-date in Japan, the United States, and Europe under controlled laboratory conditions with simulated seismic loads, to determine behavior and design limit states and to calibrate predictive analytical and design models. Seismic load simulation for these tests consisted of increasing cyclic load/deformation patterns with predetermined load distribution or, where possible, of loading patterns derived experimentally from the measured building response in conjunction with updated displacement time-histories through pseudo-dynamic testing. Difficulties in the pseudo-dynamic testing of stiff multi-story buildings due to the tight coupling between individual actuators, stability problems with the numerical integration alorithms, measurement errors and error growth, as well as the control of undesirable torsional modes, were addressed with innovations in the testing hardware and in the actuator control alorithms in the first US full-scale building test of a 5-story reinforced masonry building.