Laboratory Facilities

Duke's structural dynamics laboratory features a wide array of sensors, actuators, and data acquisition systems for precise dynamic loading and response measurement of structural systems. The central facility is a single-axis, servo-hydrualic shaking table (50~kN, 50~cm/s, 0-60 Hz, 15~cm stroke, 5 ton payload). For smaller structures we use electro-dynamic actuators (0.2~kN, 500~cm/s, 2-500~Hz, 1~cm stroke). A wide range of accelerometers (piezo-electric, MEMS, and force balance) enable measurements spanning micro-g to 10 g. Our inductive velocity sensors can measure velocites with displacements rangeing from 2~cm to 18~cm and have kHz bandwidth. Our DC-DC LVDT's measure displacments with spans from 2~cm to 10~cm and have a 100~Hz bandwidth. For load measurement, our fatigue-rated load cells have ranges from 0.2~kN to 22~kN. For custom applications, we manufacture strain-gage based load and displacement sensors. Signal conditioning is acomplished through dedicated instrumentation amplifiers and 16-channels of programmable anti-alias filters prior to digitization (16~bit to 22~bit) at sample rates up to 100~kHz. For on-line, real-time processing we use a SigLab 20-42. For real-time control we have have developed custom software and also use Matlab/Simulink with Quanser hardware.

• 1-axis, horizontal ... plan area = 121 cm by 121 cm table weight = 210 kg.
• Schenck-Pegasus 4900 digital servo-hydraulic controller
• Shore-Western actuator: 912-3.68-6.0-4-38 : 5 ton, 15 cm stroke capacity.
• Schenck-Pegasus servovalve: model 142M, 38 liter/minute system velocity limit = 50 cm/s
• system integration: Simulation Technologies Inc.