Forced vibration testing of a thirteen storey concrete building

Testing of structures to understand their behaviour under seismic conditions can provide an important source of information for safe and economical design. The need for testing the behaviour of full scale structures under dynamic loads stems from the fact that laboratory scale structures cannot account for all complexities involved. This paper describes forced vibration testing of a 13 storey reinforced concrete building having central lift core, shear walls and flat slabs, to find out its dynamic characteristics. Experiments have been carried out using the shakers and sensors within the NZNEES@Auckland Mobile Field Laboratory. Different positions of the shakers and sensors has been tried to determine optimal response of the structure. The field observations have been compared with finite element computer model. An effort has been made to synchronize a computer model with the field observations. It is emphasized that response of complex structural systems may be understood better by using the presented experimental and analytical tools.