Reprinted from the IMAC-XVII Proceedings, 1999, with permission of the Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc.

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DYNAMIC FE MODELLING OF A MULTI-STOREY CAR PARK VERIFIED BY MODAL TESTING

P. Reynolds, A. Pavic and P. Waldron

University of Sheffield Centre for Cement and Concrete Sir Frederick Mappin Building Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 3JD United Kingdom

ABSTRACT. This paper describes the application of the FE modelling, modal testing and FE model correlation and updating techniques to a 1500-tonne car park floor structure. Firstly, a pre-test FE model, constructed according to common civil engineering practice, is presented. Next, the modal testing performed on the structure is described and the results from this testing are shown. Finally, the manual FE model updating procedure as applied to this structure is described and the correlation between the updated FE model and the test results is presented. By using this procedure, inadequacies in the pre-test FE model are highlighted and suggestions are made for better modelling practice for similar future structures.

for checking the vibration serviceability of long-span and slender concrete floors. Obvious problems with civil engineering structures, such as their size and the fact that they must be tested in noisy open space environments, mean that this transfer of technology is by no means a simple process. This paper describes the application of the modal testing and analysis technologies to a full-scale reinforced concrete floor structure in a multi-storey car park. The pre-test analysis [1] comprising the construction of an FE model according to common civil engineering practice is presented, followed by a description of the modal testing and its results. Finally, limited manual FE model updating is performed to demonstrate the deficiencies in the initial modal, which are then used to suggested guidelines for the modelling of future similar structures.

1. INTRODUCTION Consideration of the vibration performance of civil engineering structures is becoming increasingly important with the current trend for more efficient and slender structural forms. In particular, long-span concrete floors, which traditionally have suffered few vibration problems, are becoming more lively due to improvements in their construction technology. A programme of research is currently underway at the University of Sheffield which is transferring advanced modal testing and analysis technologies from the mechanical and aeronautical disciplines to the civil engineering sector. The aim of this technology transfer is to provide more reliable analytical models suitable

2. THE TEST STRUCTURE The test structure was a single floor in a multi-storey car park. It weighed approximately 1500 tonnes and is illustrated in Figure 1. The floor was constructed from conventionally reinforced concrete and consisted of a number of precast concrete beams of a proprietary design connected together with cast in-situ reinforced concrete. This system formed a ribbed slab with a slab depth of 75 mm and an overall depth (including ribs) of 500 mm. The slab was supported by three rows of columns which were assumed to be rigidly connected

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Figure 1: Layout of the Test Structure. to it, as well as a small number of shear walls. In-situ cast edge beams were also present between the peripheral columns. Finally, a system of four ramps connected this slab to the adjacent car park levels. Since the car park was constructed using a new system of long-span concrete beams, the developers wanted to check its vibration performance. It was recommended that the combined FE analysis and modal testing procedure would be the best method of accomplishing this objective. using beam elements having offset capability (Beam44) and the columns and shear wall supports were modelled using pins, which is a common assumption in civil engineering dynamic modelling. The ramps to the adjacent floors were assumed to be horizontal for this model to simplify the geometry. The dynamic modulus of elasticity for the concrete was initially assumed to be 35 kN/mm2. This configuration is illustrated in Figure 2 and the first six natural frequencies and mode shapes calculated from this model are presented in Table 1.

3. PRE-TEST FE MODELLING A pre-test model was constructed according to common civil engineering practice using the Ansys 5.2 FE code. The main floor area, being a ribbed slab, was modelled using orthotropic shell elements (Shell63) in which the stiffer direction represented the direction of the ribs. The density of the concrete was adjusted to take account of the fact that the slab was not of uniform thickness. The edge beams were modelled Figure 2: Configuration of Pre-Test FE Model

Reprinted from the IMAC-XVII Proceedings, 1999, with permission of the Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc., 7 School Street, Bethel, CT 06801, 203-790-6373, Fax 203-790-4472, email sem@sem1.com, http://www.sem.org.

Mode

Nat. Freq. (Hz)

Mode Shape

5.70

6.14

For the tests described in this paper, which were performed during construction, there were severe time constraints imposed. The entire modal testing had to be completed on two consecutive overnight sessions. For this reason, a very coarse test grid containing 48 test points was selected as indicated in Figure 1. However, to check whether or not this test grid was sufficient to describe all modes of interest without the occurrence of spatial aliasing, an auto-MAC analysis was performed for the first 10 modes. The auto-MAC matrix is shown in Figure 3, indicating that the selected test grid was adequate.

6.73

7.25

7.97

Figure 3: Auto-MAC Plot for the Selected Test Grid 6 8.22 4.2 Condition of the Structure Since the car park was still under construction at the time of the tests, the contractor was asked to remove any large items of equipment or materials from the floor being tested. However, whilst most items had been removed, there were several small piles of materials left on the floor in addition to a fork-lift truck. These could not be moved by the test personnel and had to be left in place for the duration of the testing. These sorts of practical problems are very common when testing civil engineering structures, especially during construction. There were also two temporary supports (props) which provided vertical restraint to a small portion of the floor when tested. The location of these props is indicated in Figure 1. Since the existence of the these props was not included in the pre-test FE model of the structure, it was expected that the modal test results would not be consistent with it. The location of these

Table 1: Results from Pre-Test FE Analysis. 4. MODAL TESTING 4.1 Selection of Test Grid From the pre-test modelling, it was clear that the modal testing should performed on the whole floor area, rather than on a small portion of the floor as originally requested by the designers of the floor structure. This is important to note since there are many guidelines for the vibration serviceability assessment of floors which consider only a beam-like strip of the floor having a limited width. Such simplified models cannot take account of the large floor mass which is actually engaged in vibration and hence they tend to be overconservative.

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props was carefully measured for inclusion in the updated FE models of the structure. 4.3 Modal Testing Procedures Quality assurance procedures based on those recommended by the UK Dynamic Testing Agency (DTA) [2,3] were followed throughout the test to ensure that good quality data were obtained. These procedures are described in detail by Pavic et al. [4] and are not repeated in great detail here. The structure was tested using excitation provided by an APS Dynamics 113 electrodynamic shaker, capable of applying a peak sinusoidal force of 130 N. It was operated in 'free-armature mode', meaning that it was placed onto the top surface of the floor and the force was generated by accelerating reaction masses attached to the shaker armature. The force was gauged indirectly by measuring the acceleration of the moving masses. The excitation signal utilised was 'triggered random' as described by Taber et al. [5]. The response of the structure was measured using low noise, high sensitivity (1000 mV/g) Endevco 7754-1000 piezoelectric accelerometers. In these tests, the shaker was used as a roving exciter and two fixed response measurement locations were used as indicated in Figure 1. The use of the roving shaker is unusual, but is very practical when testing large-scale floors [4]. Both the excitation and response signals were digitally sampled on site using a Diagnostic Instruments DI2200 dual-channel portable spectrum analyser which provided immediate calculation and storage of frequency response functions (FRFs). In addition, the excitation and response signals were recorded using a Racal StorePlus VL analogue tape recorder for later re-sampling, if required. As a part of the QA system adopted, some limited modal parameter estimation was performed on site, using a portable notebook PC with the ICATS suite of software. This was done to ensure that the acquired data were of reasonable quality. Any FRF measurements which appeared to have been spoiled were repeated. 4.4 Results from Modal Testing The measured natural frequencies, modal damping ratios and mode shapes corresponding to the first six

Mode

Nat. Freq. (Hz) 6.41

? (%) 0.78

Mode Shape

6.82

2.88

7.32

2.38

effect of temporary supports

7.58

1.82

7.99

1.10

8.50

1.03

Table 2: Results from Modal Testing. modes of vibration are presented in Table 2. They have been expanded [6] to a more detailed finite element mesh for ease of visualisation. It is clear from a visual comparison of the measured and predicted modal properties (Tables 1 and 2) that there are significant differences. In particular, the most notable are: the natural frequencies predicted by the pre-test FE model are lower than those measured in the modal testing, the effect of the temporary props can be seen clearly, and the visual comparison between the measured and calculated pairs of the fourth and higher modes is visibly worse than for the first three modes. Obviously, the pre-test FE model was unsuitable for accurate calculation of the modal properties of this floor structure. Therefore, an improved model was developed which is presented in Section 5.

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It also appeared, particularly for the first two modes, that the magnitude of the mode shape ordinates was lower than expected at points remote from the response measurement location. It is possible that this was an unfortunate effect of the very low signal-tonoise ratio on the response channel caused by an inability to excite this structure properly using the shaker. The authors believe, therefore, that for structures significantly larger than this, a larger exciter would be required.

5. FE MODEL CORRELATION AND MANUAL UPDATING Throughout the updating process, the degree of correlation between the FE model and the test data was determined primarily using the values of natural frequencies and a visual inspection of the mode shapes. However, for the more refined models which had modal properties quite close to the test data, the more formal correlation measures of Modal Assurance Criterion (MAC) and Coordinate Modal Assurance Criterion (COMAC) were used. 5.1 Manual Updating of the FE Model The most significant improvements to the pre-test FE model were achieved by: Explicit modelling of the columns. In civil engineering practice, it has been common to idealise column/slab connections as pin supports. This inaccuracy in the boundary conditions has been shown to reduce significantly the apparent stiffness of the floor system [7]. For this reason, the columns were included in the updated model. They were assumed to be rigidly fixed at the connection with the floors directly above and below. Explicit modelling of the temporary supports. The temporary supports which were encountered on site were included in the updated FE model. Due to their location, which, incidentally, was quite close to an antinode of the first mode of vibration corresponding to the unpropped structure, the inclusion of these supports was found to be vital to the accuracy of the updated model. Explicit modelling of the ribs. Rather than approximating the ribbed slab structure as an

orthotropic slab, the relatively deep and narrow ribs (Figure 1) were modelled explicitly using offset beam elements (Beam44). However, this greatly increased the complexity of the FE model and produced only limited gains in accuracy. This will be discussed further in Section 6. Modelling of the centre beam using shell elements. Since the centre beam was 1200 mm wide and 500 mm deep, the decision was taken to model it using shell elements (Shell63). This enabled its lateral stiffness to be reduced as described below. Other improvements. Other general improvements and updates to the model included better modelling of the structural geometry and improvements in the idealisation of some of the boundary conditions (such as at the ends of the ramps which were modelled as fixed rather than pinned). In addition to these model refinements, material properties which were deemed to be uncertain were adjusted. The global dynamic modulus of elasticity was varied since the inherent variability of concrete as a material dictates that this parameter is always rather uncertain. For this structure, the optimum value of Young's modulus was determined to be 34 kN/mm2, quite close to the originally assumed 35 kN/mm2. There were also indications that there was some lack of stiffness at the centre beam (indicated in Figure 1). This was thought to be caused by a lack of continuity at this location due to the existence of the construction joints between the precast concrete elements and the in-situ cast concrete. To model this lack of continuity, the dynamic modulus of the orthotropic shell elements, representing the lateral stiffness of the centre beam, was reduced to only 3.4 kN/mm2. The configuration of the updated FE model is shown in Figure 4, which has been plotted using realistic 3-D element dimensions to aid visualisation.

Figure 4: Configuration of Updated FE Model

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Mode

Nat. Freq. (Hz)

Mode Shape

6.39

6.63 Figure 5: Correlation between the Updated FE Model and the Modal Test Data. which the correlation is low, even for these first four modes. These locations were identified as those which were far from the accelerometer reference position for which it was thought that there was a poor signal to noise ratio which reduced the quality of the measured modal data. Nevertheless, this updated FE model was considered to be sufficiently accurate for further studies of floor vibration serviceability under low-level dynamic loading.

7.40

7.87

8.23

6. CONCLUSIONS It has been demonstrated that an FE model constructed according to common civil engineering modelling practice was unable to predict accurately the modal properties of a structure at the design stage. However, it is not economically viable to model such structures in intricate detail in the normal civil engineering design office. For this reason, some suggestions are made here so that a better prediction of dynamic behaviour may be made using a reasonably economic FE model. Firstly, the presence of columns should be included explicitly in an FE model of a reinforced concrete floor structure, rather than simple pin supports. This tends to produce results which correlate more closely with measured data. More importantly, this assumption has the overall effect of increasing the stiffness and natural frequencies of the floor system. This is, in general, more beneficial as to the floor vibration serviceability.

8.45

Table 3: Results from Updated FE Analysis. 5.2 Results from Updated FE Model The results calculated from the updated FE model are presented in Table 3. It can be seen that the modal properties predicted by the updated FE model are significantly closer to those measured from testing than the pre-test model (Table 1 and Figure 5). The MAC plot presented in Figure 5 indicates a reasonable correlation between the first four modes. However, the COMAC plot indicates portions of the structure for

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Due to the 'global' nature of the lowest modes of vibration in floors, which are normally the most important for vibration serviceability analysis, a 'smeared' distribution of mass and stiffness only is required. Specifically, experience in modelling this particular structure showed that the explicit modelling of the ribs in this ribbed slab structure greatly increased the development and processing time for the model. However, it only produced limited gains in accuracy, as indicated by the results in Table 4 which compares explicit versus smeared modelling of the ribs with all other modelling details kept equal. The authors suggest that such structures may be modelled reasonably accurately in a design environment using orthotropic shell elements, provided that the element thickness and material properties are carefully considered. Nat. freq. from Nat. freq. from explicit modelling smeared modelling of ribs (Hz) of ribs (Hz) 1 6.39 6.48 2 6.63 6.71 3 7.40 7.49 4 7.87 7.94 5 8.23 8.31 6 8.45 8.57 Table 4: Explicit Versus Smeared Modelling of Ribs. Mode

EPSRC funded project (GR/L68742) entitled "Experimental FE model updating using fast modal testing of prototype civil engineering structures".

REFERENCES [1] Heylen, W., Lammens, S. and Sas, P. Modal Analysis Theory and Testing. Leuven, Belgium: KU Leuven, 1997. [2] DTA, Modal Testing, DTA Handbook - Volume 3, Dynamic Testing Agency, London, UK, 1993. [3] DTA, Primer on Best Practice in Dynamic Testing, Dynamic Testing Agency, London, UK, 1993. [4] Pavic, A., Reynolds, P. and Waldron P., Modal Testing of a Full-scale Concrete Floor: Test Specifics and QA Procedures. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis. Dublin, Ireland, pp233-240, 3-5 September 1997. [5] Taber, R. C., Brown, D. L., Vold, H. and Rocklin, G. T. Exponential Window for Burst Random Excitation. Proceedings of the 3rd International Modal Analysis Conference. Orlando, Florida, USA: SEM, pp840-844, 28-31 January 1985. [6] ICATS. MODENT, MODESH, MODACQ and MESHGEN Reference Manual. London: ICATS, 1997. [7] Reynolds, P., Pavic, A. and Waldron, P. Modal Testing, FE Analysis and FE Model Correlation of a 600 tonne Post-Tensioned Concrete Floor, 23rd International Seminar on Modal Analysis (ISMA 23), Leuven, Belgium, pp1129-1136, September 1998.

7. RECOMMENDATIONS WORK

FOR

FURTHER

For civil engineering structures, the behaviour of the as-built structure will always be more or less different from that predicted by an FE model. For this reason, it is recommended that the modal testing technology is applied to a large number of civil engineering structures so that the civil engineering community may build up experience of the vibration behaviour these structures. In this way, improvements may be made in the modelling of similar structures in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge Mihail Petkovski and Michael Hartley for their assistance during the field modal testing. The updating exercises in this paper have been conducted as part of an

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