Dynamic Performance of Large Civil Engineering Structures: An Integrated Approach to Management, Design and Assessment

尽管几十年来主要以实验室为基础的研究，开放空间环境下竣工土木工程结构的动态性能，包括振动适用性，仍然是土木结构工程中最不为人所知的领域之一。然而，由于高层建筑、大跨度地板、道路和人行桥以及看台等装配式结构的细长和高度的增加以及质量、刚度和阻尼的减少的强烈趋势，该区域的重要性正在迅速增加。使问题更加复杂的是，在过去的10年里，当人类和/或敏感过程是振动接收器时，减少和控制结构振动的要求相互矛盾。这主要是由于人们对高质量基础设施的期望增加以及先进技术过程的发展，例如微电子制造或粒子物理研究，需要亚微米级的定位精度。土建构筑物动态性能的另一个方面是对其进行长期监测。这在结构健康监测（SHM）这一发展中且有时存在争议的领域中迅速变得重要起来，根据该领域的最新发展，SHM是一个误称，应该更恰当地理解为结构性能监测（SPM）。毫不奇怪，关于振动的适用性，三分之二的相关论文都是在过去8年里发表的。仅在英国，受影响的建筑组合（主要是新建或翻新的建筑）的价值每年就超过1000亿英镑。风、地震、地上和地下交通以及人为引起的动态激励（例如，由于行走或跳跃）是关键的操作动态行为，其对建成的实际全尺寸土木工程结构及其预测（振动适用性）、利用（SPM）和缓解（振动控制）的影响是本平台拨款提案的主题。目前世界范围内这一领域的先进技术令人不满意的关键原因是普遍的研究资金不足和对更高效、更轻——因此更有活力——的结构迅速增长的需求之间的不平衡。在强大的商业压力下，目前世界各地都在建造这些结构，令人担忧的是，这没有得到对其运作动态行为的充分了解的支持。从第一原理出发，需要更多地整合现有理论和可用（但在此背景下未使用）技术，将实验和分析方法与动态性能联系起来。将分析与现实联系起来是理解更好的动态性能和改进设计指南的唯一途径。这一环节现在经常被忽略。因此，该建议的主要目的是在未来五年内为提案人提供灵活的资金，以实现他们对大型土木工程结构的设计和评估管理以及动态性能管理的综合方法的愿景。这个既定的目标，或者更确切地说，愿景，是非常雄心勃勃的，但也是广泛的，有风险的，很难在常规的EPSRC项目资助下进行调查。在这方面，平台赠款是实现这一目标的理想供资机制。VES目前的活动组合与平台资助计划完全兼容，为这项工作提供丰富和令人兴奋的专业知识以及硬件和软件支持。

Despite decades of mainly laboratory-based research, dynamic performance, including vibration serviceability, of as-built civil engineering structures in open-space environments is still one of the least understood areas of civil structural engineering. However, this area is rapidly gaining in importance due to strong trends towards increased slenderness and height as well as reduced mass, stiffness and damping of high-rise buildings, long-span floors, road- and foot-bridges, as well as assembly structures such as grandstands occupied and dynamically excited by thousands of spectators. To compound the problem, in the last 10 years this has been coupled with the contradicting requirements to reduce and control structural vibrations when humans and/or sensitive processes are vibration receivers. This is mainly due to increased human expectations from high-quality infrastructure and the development of advanced technological processes, such as microelectronics manufacturing or particle physics research, requiring sub-micron positional precision. Another aspect of dynamic performance of as-built civil engineering structures is their long-term monitoring. This is rapidly gaining importance in the developing and sometimes contentious field of structural health monitoring (SHM), which is a misnomer and should more appropriately be understood, based on recent developments in the field, as structural performance monitoring (SPM).Not surprisingly, with vibration serviceability, two-thirds of all relevant papers dealing with this problem were published only in the last 8 years. The value of the portfolio of affected, mainly new-built or refurbished, structures just in the UK is more than 100bn annually. Wind, earthquake, over- and underground traffic as well as human-induced dynamic excitation (e.g. due to walking or jumping) are the key operational dynamic actions of which effects on as-built real-life full-scale civil engineering structures and their prediction (for vibration serviceability), utilisation (for SPM) and mitigation (for vibration control) are the subject of this Platform Grant proposal.The key reason for the current unsatisfactory worldwide state-of-the-art in this area is the imbalance between the general research underfunding and rapidly increasing demands for more efficient, lighter - therefore livelier - structures. Under strong commercial pressures the construction of these structures currently takes place all over the world and it is worrying that this is not supported by sound understanding of their operational dynamic behaviour. Starting from first principles, more integration of existing theories and available (but in this context not utilised) technologies, is required to link experimental and analytical approaches to dynamic performance. Linking analysis with reality is the only way to understand better dynamic performance and improve design guidelines. This link is often missing nowadays.The key aim of the proposal therefore is to provide flexible funding for the proposers over the next five years to realise their vision for an integrated approach to management of design and assessment, and management of dynamic performance of large civil engineering structures. The stated aim, or better say vision, is very ambitious but is also broad, risky and difficult to investigate under normal EPSRC project-based funding. In this context, the Platform Grant is the ideal funding mechanism for achieving this aim. The current portfolio of VES activities is fully compatible with this Platform Grant proposal, offering rich and exciting expertise as well as hardware and software support for the work.