LESS @ WMU
is a state-of-the-art facility for
simulating earthquakes
and the
effects on small scale structures. The major
equipment in
the LESS
includes a uni-axial seismic simulator (commonly called shake
table), two
3 kips hydraulic actuators with the supporting hydraulic power supply
and
advanced real time controller. The shake table has a dimension of 3 ft.
x 3 ft.
and can subject a specimen with maximum weight of 500 lb to an
earthquake time
history with peak acceleration up to 4 g. Structural dynamic properties
and its
response when attacked by an earthquake will be obtained through such
shake
table test. Instrumentation available in the lab consists of
accelerometers and
linear variable displacement transducer (LVDT) and a set of wireless
sensor
network. Through these equipments, various seismic experiments can be
performed, including shake table test, effective force test,
pseudodynamic test
in real time and with substructuring.
The video below shows one of the tests performed by
the shake table at the Laboratory of Earthquake and Structural Simulation
at Western Michigan University.
On March 23, Dr. Shao traveled toUniversity of
Alabama to preform real-time hybrid simulation of
a damped and undamped wood shear wall. This video shows one of the
tests preformed by the NEESsoft team.
Western Michigan
University ---
Department of Civil and Construction Engineering Laboratory
of
Earthquake and Structural Simulation ---
Last Updated: 5-06-2013
