• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.137-154
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• 2014

Servohydraulic shaking tables are being increasingly used in the field of earthquake engineering. They play a critical role in the advancement of the research state and remain one of the valuable tools for seismic testing. Recently, the National Earthquake Engineering Research Center, CGS, has acquired a 6.1m x 6.1 m shaking table system which has a six degree-of-freedom testing capability. The maximum specimen mass that can be tested on the shaking table is 60 t. This facility is designed specially for testing a complete civil engineering structures, substructures and structural elements up to collapse or ultimate limit states. It can also be used for qualification testing of industrial equipments. The current paper presents the main findings of the experimental shake-down characterization testing of the CGS shaking table. The test program carried out in this study included random white noise and harmonic tests. These tests were performed along each of the six degrees of freedom, three translations and three rotations. This investigation provides fundamental parameters that are required and essential while elaborating a realistic model of the CGS shaking table. Also presented in this paper, is the numerical model of the shaking table that was established and validated.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.840-845
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• 2014

Vibration profiles consist of two kinds of pattern, random and harmonic, at general engineering problems and the detailed vibration test mode of a target system is decided by the spectral condition that is exposed under operation. In moving mobility, random responses come generally from road source; whereas the harmonic responses are triggered from rotating machinery parts, such as combustion engine or drive shaft. Different spectral input may accumulate different damage in frequency domain since the accumulated fatigue damage dependent on the pattern of input spectrum in high cyclic loading condition. To evaluate the sensitivity of spectral damage according to different loading conditions, a linear elastic system is introduced to conduct a uniaxial vibration testing. Measured data, acceleration and strain, is analyzed using energy isocline function and then, the calculated fatigue damage is compared by different loading cases, random and harmonic.

• International Journal of Reliability and Applications
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.125-150
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• 2014

Accelerated life tests (ALTs) are extensively used to determine the reliability of a product in a short period of time. Test units are subject to elevated stresses which yield quick failures. ALT can be carried out using constant-stress, step-stress, progressive-stress, cyclic-stress or random-stress loading and their various combinations. An ALT with linearly increasing stress is ramp-stress test. Much of the previous work on planning ALTs has focused on constant-stress, step-stress, ramp-stress schemes and their various combinations where the stress is generally increased. This paper presents an optimal design of ramp soak-stress ALT model which is based on the principle of Thermal cycling. Thermal cycling involves applying high and low temperatures repeatedly over time. The optimal plan consists in finding out relevant experimental variables, namely, stress rates and stress rate change points, by minimizing variance of reliability function with pre-specified mission time under normal operating conditions. The Burr type XII life distribution and time-censored data have been used for the purpose. Burr type XII life distribution has been found appropriate for accelerated life testing experiments. The method developed has been explained using a numerical example and sensitivity analysis carried out.