Development of a Robust Framework for Real-time Hybrid Simulation: from Dynamical System, Motion Control to Experimental Error Verification

Gao, Xiuyu. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2012. Development of a Robust Framework for Real-time Hybrid Simulation: from Dynamical System, Motion Control to Experimental Error Verification. Major Professor: Shirley Dyke. Real time hybrid simulation (RTHS) has increasingly been recognized as a powerful methodology to evaluate structural components and systems under realistic operating conditions. The idea is to explore and combine the advantages of numerical analysis with physical lab testing. Furthermore, the enforced real-time condition allows testing on ratedependent components. Although the concept is very attractive, challenges do exist that require an improved understanding of the methodology. One of the most important challenges in RTHS is to achieve synchronized boundary conditions between the computational and physical substructures. Test stability and accuracy are largely governed by the level of synchronization. The sensitivity of the RTHS system error to the de-synchronization error is analyzed, from which a worst-case substructure scheme is identified and verified experimentally. This de-synchronization error, which is largely associated with the actuator dynamics, is further analyzed, by studying the sensitivity of the actuator dynamics with respect to the actuator parameter variation.