Theoretical and experimental studies on critical time delay of multi-DOF real-time hybrid simulation

This paper aims to investigate the critical stability of a multi-degree-of-freedom(multi-DOF)real-time hybrid simulation(RTHS).First,the critical time-delay analysis models are developed using the continuous-and discrete-time root locus(RL)techniques,respectively.A bilinear transform is introduced into the first-order Padéapproximation while conducting the discrete RL analysis.Based on this technique,the time delay can be explicitly used as the gain factor and thus the instability mechanism of the multi-DOF RTHS system can be analyzed.Subsequently,the critical time delays calculated by the continuous-and discrete-time RL techniques,respectively,are compared for a 2-DOF RTHS system.It is shown that assuming the RTHS system to be a continuous-time system will result in overestimating the critical time delay.Finally,theoretically calculated critical delays are demonstrated and validated by numerical simulation and a set of RTHS experiments.Parametric analysis provides a glimpse of the effects of time step,frequency and damping ratio in a performing partitioning scheme.The constructed analysis model proves to be useful for evaluating the critical time delay to predict stability and performance,therefore facilitating successful RTHS.