Development and Verification of Vertical Excitation System by Using Horizontal Shaking Table

Abstract

Shaking table is used to test the seismic resistance or assess the seismic behavior of structures. Considering that the seismic excitation is generally accepted as the horizontal motion of the ground, the most common shaking tables operate by moving unidirectionally and horizontally a lightweight platform on which a scaled model of the structure is attached. However, some structures like the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) are intended to vibrate or operate vertically. Accordingly, this paper proposes a method using the shaking table to excite the structure vertically rather than using actuators. In order to validate the proposed system, the vertical motion induced by the shaking table is predicted numerically and compared to data obtained from test on a TMD.