BEng Civil Engineering

Structures and Design A

Laboratory: Dynamic Properties of a Shear Frame with Two Degrees of Freedom

Figure 1

A model of a two-storey shear frame is to be tested in the laboratory using an

instructional shake table shown in Figure1. The geometry and material properties are:
Column sizes d=1.13mm, b=108.3mm, height 500mm, material steel E=200GPa.
Floor length is 310mm, mass of floor 1 is 2.05kg, mass of floor 2 is 1.85kg.

The frame is subjected to a ground motion and the accelerations at two levels are
plotted. The data are recorded in an excel file. Two different type loads are used:
a) Harmonic motion, where the amplitude remains constant at 10mm and
frequency of the ground motion is varied at 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2 Hz.
b) The earthquake load from four different earthquakes.

You are required to:

 For each of the loads plot the acceleration vs time graphs at the two floor levels.
 Estimate natural frequency and damping of this frame and discuss what other
information can be gained from the experimental data.