Hybrid simulation with dynamic substructuring of masonry structures: A numerical study

Hybrid simulation is used to compute the time history response of an emulated system subject to a dynamic excitation by combining a physical and a numerical substructure. The former is tested in the laboratory by means of servo-controlled actuators whist a real-time computer simulates the latter and solves the coupled equation of motion. Hybrid simulation has been extensively applied for seismic response history analysis of steel and concrete frame structures. For these systems, subdomain partitioning follows storey levels and nodal joints among beam/column-like elements. In the case of planar masonry structures, distributed interfaces characterize system subdomains and, in principle, several actuators should be used to impose the correct boundary conditions to the tested specimen. This paper presents a new substructuring method for planar masonry substructures, which aims to reduce the number of actuators necessary to achieve a predetermined coupling accuracy between physical and numerical subdomains. The numerical validation of this procedure is illustrated for a masonry building facade system.