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

  • Special Section: State-of-the-Art of Hybrid Testing Method
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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the EPSRC for partially funding this work (particularly grant Nos. EP/D079101/1 and EP/D080088/1). We also thank other members of the UK-NEES team, especially Arshad Ali, Javier Parra Fuente & Kashif Saleem.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK

    Mobin Ojaghi, Ignacio Lamata Martínez, Martin S. Williams & Anthony Blakeborough

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TR, UK

    Matt S. Dietz, Adam J. Crewe & Colin A. Taylor

  3. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK

    S. P. Gopal Madabhushi & Stuart K. Haigh

  4. KBR Ltd., London Operating Centre, Leatherhead, KT22 7NL, UK

    Mobin Ojaghi

Authors
  1. Mobin Ojaghi
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  2. Ignacio Lamata Martínez
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  3. Matt S. Dietz
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  4. Martin S. Williams
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  5. Anthony Blakeborough
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  6. Adam J. Crewe
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  7. Colin A. Taylor
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  8. S. P. Gopal Madabhushi
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  9. Stuart K. Haigh
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Correspondence to Mobin Ojaghi.

Additional information

Supported by: Partially funded by EPSRC under Grant Nos. EP/D079101/1 and EP/D080088/1

Author acting in personal capacity. The authors remain solely responsible for this work, which was produced independently, with no corporate involvement.

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Ojaghi, M., Lamata Martínez, I., Dietz, M.S. et al. Geographically distributed hybrid testing & collaboration between geotechnical centrifuge and structures laboratories. Earthq. Eng. Eng. Vib. 17, 53–71 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-018-0425-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-018-0425-1

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