Delay-dependent stability and added damping of SDOF real-time dynamic hybrid testing

It is well-recognized that a transfer system response delay that reduces the test stability inevitably exists in real-time dynamic hybrid testing （RTDHT）. This paper focuses on the delay-dependent stability and added damping of SDOF systems in RTDHT. The exponential delay term is transferred into a rational fraction by the Pad6 approximation, and the delay-dependent stability conditions and instability mechanism of SDOF RTDHT systems are investigated by the root locus technique. First, the stability conditions are discussed separately for the cases of stiffness, mass, and damping experimental substructure. The use of root locus plots shows that the added damping effect and instability mechanism for mass are different from those for stiffness. For the stiffness experimental substructure case, the instability results from the inherent mode because of an obvious negative damping effect of the delay. For the mass case, the delay introduces an equivalent positive damping into the inherent mode, and instability occurs at an added high frequency mode. Then, the compound stability condition is investigated for a general case and the results show that the mass ratio may have both upper and lower limits to remain stable. Finally, a high-emulational virtual shaking table model is built to validate the stability conclusions.

Simulation of large-scale numerical substructure in real-time dynamic hybrid testing

A solution scheme is proposed in this paper for an existing RTDHT system to simulate large-scale finite element （FE） numerical substructures. The analysis of the FE numerical substructure is split into response analysis and signal generation tasks, and executed in two different target computers in real-time. One target computer implements the response analysis task, wherein a large time-step is used to solve the FE substructure, and another target computer implements the signal generation task, wherein an interpolation program is used to generate control signals in a small time-step to meet the input demand of the controller. By using this strategy, the scale of the FE numerical substructure simulation may be increased significantly. The proposed scheme is initially verified by two FE numerical substructure models with 98 and 1240 degrees of freedom （DOFs）. Thereafter, RTDHTs of a single frame-foundation structure are implemented where the foundation, considered as the numerical substructure, is simulated by the FE model with 1240 DOFs. Good agreements between the results of the RTDHT and those from the FE analysis in ABAQUS are obtained.

Hybrid Model Testing Technique for Deep-Sea Platforms Based on Equivalent Water Depth Truncation

In this paper, an inner turret moored FPSO which works in the water of 320 m depth, is selected to study the socalled ＂passively-truncated ＋ numerical-simulation＂ type of hybrid model testing technique while the tnmcated water depth is 160 m and the model scale ）, = 80. During the investigation, the optimization design of the equivalent-depth truncated system is performed by using the similarity of the static characteristics between the truncated system and the full depth one as the objective function. According to the truncated system, the corresponding physical test model is made. By adopting the coupling time domain simulation method, the tnmcated system model test is numerically reconstructed to carefully verify the computer simulation software and to adjust the corresponding hydrodynamic parameters. Based on the above work, the numerical extrapolation to the full depth system is performed by using the verified computer software and the adjusted hydrodyrmmic parameters. The full depth system model test is then performed in the basin and the results are compared with those from the numerical extrapolation. At last, the implementation procedure and the key technique of the hybrid model testing of the deep-sea platforms are summarized and printed. Through the above investigations, some beneficial conclusions are presented.

Flexible substructure online hybrid test system using conventional testing devices

This paper presents a substructure online hybrid test system that is extensible for geographically distributed tests. This system consists of a set of devices conventionally used for cyclic tests to load the tested substructures onto the target displacement or the target force. Due to their robustness and portability, individual sets of conventional loading devices can be transported and reconfigured to realize physical loading in geographically remote laboratories. Another appealing feature is the flexible displacement-force mixed control that is particularly suitable for specimens having large disparities in stiffness during various performance stages. To conduct a substructure online hybrid test, an extensible framework is developed, which is equipped with a generalized interface to encapsulate each substructure. Multiple tested substructures and analyzed substructures using various structural program codes can be accommodated within the single framework, simply interfaced with the boundary displacements and forces. A coordinator program is developed to keep the boundaries among all substructures compatible and equilibrated. An Interuet-based data exchange scheme is also devised to transfer data among computers equipped with different software environments. A series of online hybrid tests are introduced, and the portability, flexibility, and extensibility of the online hybrid test system are demonstrated.

Extended research on software hybrid testing combining reliability and directed testing

The software reliability testing has many disadvantages in practice, such as high complexity of constructing operational profiles and poor fault detection efficiency. Oppositely, the directed testing with a high fault detection rate is incapable of estimating reliability quantificationally. To solve this problem, a hybrid testing combining reliability and directed testing as well as a reliability model based on the order statistic （OS） model were presented by Mitchell. An extended research on Mitchell＇s work is proposed. Firstly, the most proper distribution of the fault＇s failure rate which tends to be Iognormal is suggested, and a detailed form of the OS model based on Iognormal and the corresponding parameter estimation method are proposed, respectively. Secondly, an im- plementing framework for the hybrid testing is proposed. Finally, the hybrid testing and the OS model are applied on a real website system. The experimental results indicate： the hybrid testing has more efficient fault detection power and lower testing cost than the reliability testing; compared with three traditional software reliabil ity growth models, the OS model has a best or pretty estimation or prediction power for each data set; and for the failure data set collected from hybrid testing, the OS model also achieves an ac- ceptable estimation result.

Substructure hybrid testing of reinforced concrete shear wall structure using a domain overlapping technique

An online hybrid test was carried out on a 40-story 120-m high concrete shear wall structure. The structure was divided into two substructures whereby a physical model of the bottom three stories was tested in the laboratory and the upper 37 stories were simulated numerically using ABAQUS. An overlapping domain method was employed for the bottom three stories to ensure the validity of the boundary conditions of the superstructure. Mixed control was adopted in the test. Displacement control was used to apply the horizontal displacement, while two controlled force actuators were applied to simulate the overturning moment, which is very large and cannot be ignored in the substructure hybrid test of high-rise buildings. A series of tests with earthquake sources of sequentially increasing intensities were carried out. The test results indicate that the proposed hybrid test method is a solution to reproduce the seismic response of high-rise concrete shear wall buildings. The seismic performance of the tested precast high-rise building satisfies the requirements of the Chinese seismic design code.

Prediction method of restoring force based on online AdaBoost regression tree algorithm in hybrid test

In order to solve the poor generalization ability of the back-propagation(BP)neural network in the model updating hybrid test,a novel method called the AdaBoost regression tree algorithm is introduced into the model updating procedure in hybrid tests.During the learning phase,the regression tree is selected as a weak regression model to be trained,and then multiple trained weak regression models are integrated into a strong regression model.Finally,the training results are generated through voting by all the selected regression models.A 2-DOF nonlinear structure was numerically simulated by utilizing the online AdaBoost regression tree algorithm and the BP neural network algorithm as a contrast.The results show that the prediction accuracy of the online AdaBoost regression algorithm is 48.3%higher than that of the BP neural network algorithm,which verifies that the online AdaBoost regression tree algorithm has better generalization ability compared to the BP neural network algorithm.Furthermore,it can effectively eliminate the influence of weight initialization and improve the prediction accuracy of the restoring force in hybrid tests.

A Parallel Hybrid Testing Technique for Tri-Programming Model-Based Software Systems

Recently,researchers have shown increasing interest in combining more than one programming model into systems running on high performance computing systems(HPCs)to achieve exascale by applying parallelism at multiple levels.Combining different programming paradigms,such as Message Passing Interface(MPI),Open Multiple Processing(OpenMP),and Open Accelerators(OpenACC),can increase computation speed and improve performance.During the integration of multiple models,the probability of runtime errors increases,making their detection difficult,especially in the absence of testing techniques that can detect these errors.Numerous studies have been conducted to identify these errors,but no technique exists for detecting errors in three-level programming models.Despite the increasing research that integrates the three programming models,MPI,OpenMP,and OpenACC,a testing technology to detect runtime errors,such as deadlocks and race conditions,which can arise from this integration has not been developed.Therefore,this paper begins with a definition and explanation of runtime errors that result fromintegrating the three programming models that compilers cannot detect.For the first time,this paper presents a classification of operational errors that can result from the integration of the three models.This paper also proposes a parallel hybrid testing technique for detecting runtime errors in systems built in the C++programming language that uses the triple programming models MPI,OpenMP,and OpenACC.This hybrid technology combines static technology and dynamic technology,given that some errors can be detected using static techniques,whereas others can be detected using dynamic technology.The hybrid technique can detect more errors because it combines two distinct technologies.The proposed static technology detects a wide range of error types in less time,whereas a portion of the potential errors that may or may not occur depending on the 4502 CMC,2023,vol.74,no.2 operating environment are left to the dynamic technology,which completes the validation.

Geographically distributed hybrid testing & collaboration between geotechnical centrifuge and structures laboratories

Distributed Hybrid Testing（DHT） is an experimental technique designed to capitalise on advances in modern networking infrastructure to overcome traditional laboratory capacity limitations. By coupling the heterogeneous test apparatus and computational resources of geographically distributed laboratories, DHT provides the means to take on complex, multi-disciplinary challenges with new forms of communication and collaboration. To introduce the opportunity and practicability afforded by DHT, here an exemplar multi-site test is addressed in which a dedicated fibre network and suite of custom software is used to connect the geotechnical centrifuge at the University of Cambridge with a variety of structural dynamics loading apparatus at the University of Oxford and the University of Bristol. While centrifuge time-scaling prevents real-time rates of loading in this test, such experiments may be used to gain valuable insights into physical phenomena, test procedure and accuracy. These and other related experiments have led to the development of the real-time DHT technique and the creation of a flexible framework that aims to facilitate future distributed tests within the UK and beyond. As a further example, a real-time DHT experiment between structural labs using this framework for testing across the Internet is also presented.

Hybrid Verification of A Deepwater Cell-Truss Spar

Hybrid model testing technique is widely used in verification of a deepwater floating structure and its mooring system, but the design of the truncated mooring systems which can reproduce both static and dynamic response same as the full-depth mooring system is still a big challenge, especially for the mooring systems with large truncation. A Cell-Truss Spar operated in 1500 m water depth is verified in a wave basin with 4 m water depth. A large truncation factor arises even though a small model scale 1 ： 100 is adopted. Computer program modules for analyzing the static and frequency domain dynamic response of mooting line are combined with multi-objective genetic algorithm NSGA-II to optimize the truncated mooring system. Considering the asyrmnetry of layout of mooring lines, two different truncated mooring systems are respectively designed for both directions in which the restoring forces of the mooring system are quite different. Not only the static characteristics of the mooring systems are calibrated, but also the dynamic responses of the single truncated mooring line are evaluated through time domain numerical simulation and model tests. The model test results of 100-year storm in the GOM are reconstructed and extrapolated to a full depth. It is found that the experimental and numerical resuits of Spar wave frequency motion agree well, and the dynamic responses of the full-depth mooring lines are better reproduced, but the low frequency surge motion is overestimated due to the smaller mooring-induced damping. It is a feasible method adopting different tnmcated mooring systems for different directions in which the restoring force characteristics are quite different and cannot be simulated by one truncated mooring system. Hybrid verification of a deepwater platform in wave basin with shallow water depth is still feasible if the truncated mooring systems are properly designed, and numerical extrapolation is necessary.

Optimal Design of Equivalent Water Depth Truncated Mooring System Based on Baton Pattern Simulated Annealing Algorithm

The highest similarity degree of static characteristics including both horizontal and vertical restoring force-displacement characteristics of total mooring system, as well as the tension-displacement characteristics of the representative single mooring line between the truncated and full depth system are obtained by annealing simulation algorithm for hybrid discrete variables （ASFHDV, in short）. A“baton” optimization approach is proposed by utilizing ASFHDV. After each baton of optimization, if a few dimensional variables reach the upper or lower limit, the boundary of certain dimensional variables shall be expanded. In consideration of the experimental requirements, the length of the upper mooring line should not be smaller than 8 m, and the diameter of the anchor chain on the bottom should be larger than 0.03 m. A 100000 t turret mooring FPSO in the water depth of 304 m, with the truncated water depth being 76 m, is taken as an example of equivalent water depth truncated mooring system optimal design and calculation, and is performed to obtain the conformation parameters of the truncated mooring system. The numerical results indicate that the present truncated mooring system design is successful and effective.

Seismic performance evaluation of VCFPB isolated storage tank using real-time hybrid simulation

Variable curvature friction pendulum bearings(VCFPB)effectively reduce the dynamic response of storage tanks induced by earthquakes.Shaking table testing is used to assess the seismic performance of VCFPB isolated storage tanks.However,the vertical pressure and friction coefficient of the scaled VCFPB in the shaking table tests cannot match the equivalent values of these parameters in the prototype.To avoid this drawback,a real-time hybrid simulation(RTHS)test was developed.Using RTHS testing,a 1/8 scaled tank isolated by VCFPB was tested.The experimental results showed that the displacement dynamic magnification factor of VCFPB,peak reduction factors of the acceleration,shear force,and overturning moment at bottom of the tank,were negative exponential functions of the ratio of peak ground acceleration(PGA)and friction coefficient.The peak reduction factors of displacement,acceleration,force and overturning moment,which were obtained from the experimental results,are compared with those calculated by the Housner model.It can be concluded that the Housner model is applicable in estimation of the acceleration,shear force,and overturning moment of liquid storage tank,but not for the sliding displacement of VCFPBs.

Investigation on Optimization Design of an Equivalent Water Depth Truncated Mooring System Based on INSGA-Ⅱ

At present,equivalent water depth truncated mooring system optimization design is regarded as the priority of hybrid model testing for deep sea platforms,and will replace the full depth system test in the future.Compared with the full depth system,the working depth and span are smaller in the truncated one,and the other characteristics maintain more consistency as well.In this paper,an inner turret moored floating production storage ＆ offloading system（FPSO） which works at a water depth of 320m,was selected to be a research example while the truncated water depth was 80m.Furthermore,an improved non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm（INSGA-II） was selected to optimally calculate the equivalent water depth truncated system,considering the stress condition of the total mooring system in both the horizontal and vertical directions,as well as the static characteristic similarity of the representative single mooring line.The results of numerical calculations indicate that the mathematical model is feasible,and the optimization method is fast and effective.

Online hybrid test using a finite element program and an explicit integration scheme

A new online hybrid test system combined with substructuring techniques and incorporating finite element methods is developed.In the proposed system,numerical substructure analysis is conducted by ABAQUS/Explicit.An ABAQUS user subroutine is used as the interface between the main control program and ABAQUS to impose the target displacements and determine the reaction forces.No iteration is needed in this system,making it suitable for physical testing.As the approach also avoids the need to modify source code,it will be appealing to a number of real engineering applications.The proposed system adopts a separated-model framework,operator-splitting integration scheme,and data exchange through a socket mechanism.The earthquake responses of a simple steel moment-resisting frame are simulated,and the results obtained from the new system are compared to those obtained from the conventional analysis.It is found that the results obtained from the new system are accurate,demonstrating the applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach.The optimal test parameters are also studied to gain the most accurate results in the minimum time.