The establishment of the Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (CEES) is aimed to operate as a multidisciplinary research center. The core mission of CEES is to be fully committed to conducting excellent earthquake centrifuge modeling. CEES strategy vision is to maximize its contribution as well as the contributions of other to earthquake engineering and other aspects of engineering and technology. Our commitment is to provide researchers state-of-the-art facility to conduct analytical, experimental, analytical-experimental, and multidisciplinary research within and outside earthquake engineering.
About Our Equipment
Rensselaer’s centrifuge was commissioned in 1989 and started conducting physical model simulations of soil and soil-structure systems subjected to in-flight earthquake shaking in 1991. In this decade of successful operation, the facility has published results of about 360 earthquake-related model simulations, served as the basis for 12 Ph.D. theses at RPI (10 Ph.D. theses in the last five years), contributed to the research of RPI faculty and students as well as of dozens of visiting scholars and outside users from the US, Asia, Europe and Latin America, and provided data and research results to many people and organizations around the world This centrifuge earthquake research has been conducted with two existing one-dimensional in-flight shakers, which can accommodate respectively 90 kg and 400 kg payloads.
In-Flight Robot
The in-flight robot is designed to perform multiple tasks while the centrifuge is spinning. It is capable of articulating in three linear dimensions and rotating around one axis, and can carry several tools that aid in executing various tasks. The ability to conduct these field operations in-flight increases the accuracy and realism of the experiment. Researchers may fabricate custom tools to use with the in-flight robot.
2D Laminar Box
The 2D Laminar Container is designed specifically for use with RPI’s new 2D shaker and can be used at centrifuge accelerations of up to 100 g. The design of this new RPI 2D laminar container is based upon a similar container for the centrifuge at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The new 2D laminar box incorporates several design enhancements, including a more rigid base plate and a modified “open top” restraint system, so as to facilitate access to the model surface by cameras and by the RPI in-flight robot.
2D Shaker
The 2D shaker is designed to conduct more realistic in-flight earthquake simulations, where the base of the 2D laminar box container with the model is subjected to two prototype horizontal components of earthquake shaking. It can apply shaking to centrifuge models in the prototype horizontal plane while being spun at up to 100 g. By mounting the 2D laminar box on its slip-table, the shaker can provide dynamic excitation to soil models and thereby facilitate investigation of the behavior of scaled geotechnical or soil-structure systems in response to these complex excitations. When not used for providing base input motions for dynamic testing, the shaker can be used to support static model containers for tests of up to 150g.
Split Box
The split box is a model container for use in geotechnical centrifuge testing. It uses a hydraulic cylinder to produce localized shear strains along a vertical interface in a dry soil model while being spun at centrifugal accelerations of up to 50g. A load cell directly connected between the actuator and the movable half of the container measures the shearing force applied by the actuator. The motion of the actuator is controlled using a 12-volt solenoid-operated directional control valve. In addition, the strain rate is controlled by a manually adjustable flow-control valve which is used to control the flow-rate of oil to the actuator.