Advanced Hybrid Simulation for Storm Surge Loads

Clarkson University, Potsdam NY

Investigators

Abstract

Coastal water related hazards such as tsunamis, floods, and high waves have caused numerous casualties and extensive economic losses in the United States and many parts of the world. However, current building codes and design guidelines are lacking in details for storm surge induced loads and their impact on structures. Due to difficulties in handling storm surge-structure interaction and limitations in existing analysis techniques, structural performance under storm surge loads is not well understood. This award pursues a combination of computational fluid dynamics to assess storm surge loads on structures and force?based hybrid experiments to validate structural response simulation. This combination of computational fluid dynamics and force-based testing is the only rational way of pursuing research in storm surge impact on coastal structures. This new approach will help increase our understanding of structural performance impacted by storm surge loads and ultimately, will lead to an improvement in design practice. Furthermore, the proposed approach of computational fluid dynamics is transformative to simulations of other types of fluid loads such as strong winds, providing an enabling technology for multi-hazard analysis and mitigation. The project team plans to integrate the research into education, training and outreach activities. Existing hybrid structural simulation techniques are predominantly developed for earthquake loads. While these techniques fulfill displacement compatibilities at structural nodes at each time step, they are not suitable for fluid-induced loads due to a lack of ability to meet force equilibrium at fluid-structure boundaries. To this date hybrid simulation for structural response for fluid loads is not well developed. The objective of this project is to advance hybrid simulation to storm surge loads with force-based formulation of equations of motion and dynamic force control in structural testing. Furthermore, the proposed approach integrates computational fluid dynamics into hybrid simulation, allowing for accurate incorporation of fluid-structure interaction. The project team will develop a framework and required tool sets for the advanced hybrid simulation and validate them through laboratory experimental investigations. The techniques developed in this project are transformative and can be further expanded to multi-hazards including strong winds. A successful completion of the project will advance the field of structural engineering and hazard mitigation with needed simulation capabilities.