Damage monitoring of the RC frame shaking table test and comparison with FEM results

Abstract

Piezoelectric smart aggregate (SA) is an internal stress sensor capable of full range seismic damage monitoring for concrete structures. In this study, the structure model is a one-bay-two-story RC frame, which is subjected to one direction horizontal excitation in a shaking table test. Stresses of four cross sections at the top and bottom of the two columns in the first floor which were symmetrical about the central axis along the excitation direction were monitored. Strain of rebar, acceleration, displacement of the structure was also monitored. The RC frame underwent Loma Prieta earthquake record with a peak value of 0.8g. After the simulated ground motion, only moderate damages were observed in the structure. Finite element analysis (FEA) using OpenSEES were conducted to simulate the shaking table test. By the comparison between the test and numerical results, the influence of the randomness of the material property identified by the SA-based stress monitoring on the failure pattern was discussed and the parameters of finite element model were checked.