Development of a hybrid simulation controller for full-scale experimental investigation of seismic retrofits for soft-story woodframe buildings

Hybrid simulations of a full-scale soft-story woodframe building specimen with various retrofits were carried out as part of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Research project - NEES-Soft: seismic risk reduction for soft-story woodframe buildings. The test structure in the hybrid simulation was a three-story woodframe building that was divided into a numerical substructure of the first story with various retrofits and a full-scale physical substructure of the upper two stories. Four long-stroke actuators, two at the second floor and two at the roof diaphragm, were attached to the physical substructure to impose the simulated seismic responses including both translation and in-plane rotation. Challenges associated with this first implementation of a full-scale hybrid simulation on a woodframe building were identified. This paper presents the development and validation of a scalable and robust hybrid simulation controller for efficient test site deployment. The development consisted of three incremental validation phases ranging from small-scale, mid-scale, to full-scale tests conducted at three laboratories. Experimental setup, procedure, and results of each phase of the controller development are discussed, demonstrating the effectiveness and efficiency of the incremental controller development approach for large-scale hybrid simulation programs with complex test setup. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.