“Investigation of SDOF systems using Energy-Based Methods ”

Scope: This project consists of the three main objectives. The primary aim is to evaluate experimentally the energy components of single degree of freedom (SDOF) cantilever steel column specimens using shake table test setup with real-time ground acceleration records and verify the experimental data with the existing energy spectra. The second aim is to determine the resulting ratio of input energy of SDOF systems having different material and length properties. This task involves comparison of dimensional analyses equations with experimental results and determine which equation best describes the energy ratio. The third aim is mainly focused on the experimental measurements where comparisons between data collected by accelerometers, displacement and laser meter measurement data with data collected using LED light sources mounted on the surface of the test specimens and video recording them using an ordinary smart cell phone’s camera . In order to process the video recording image data, a computer code is developed which tracks any defined LED light source image frame by frame and come up with displacement responses. Displacements are then converted into velocity and acceleration responses by means of derivative operators. As a result of this study, cost-effective and high sensitive new displacement measurement system is provided and best way of measuring responses of a SDOF system that are tested on shake table is proposed.