CREATESPACE Applied Time History Processing and Interpretation: Strong Motion Record Manipulation for Dynamic Analysis with Tips and Tricks for Data Evaluation

This book provides the fundamental techniques required by anyone interpreting discrete test data, conducting time history analysis or interpreting its results. The concepts involved in the sampling of continuous phenomena to obtain discrete time series are presented mainly in the context of strong motion or ambient data. The book covers topics related to dynamic testing, modeling and analysis, as well as the selection of time history records. Some of the examples presented here can be used to verify or augment routines implemented in "black box" time history manipulation software that readers might already be using.The time histories treated in this book can be from strong motion recording, from measurements of structures during dynamic tests, or from outputs of time history analyses of structural models. The book provides the tools for the preparation and interpretation of the input data for dynamic analysis and for the evaluation of output data. This should allow the reader to understand the quality of the information that is fed into dynamic analysis algorithms. Thus, if properly applied, it should help guard against the “garbage in” problem, which affects a certain portion of dynamic analysis work. Many of the tools and techniques provided in this book should also allow an astute user to assess the quality of the output obtained from their own dynamic analysis. Readers are assumed to have some familiarity with basic statistics and differential and integral calculus equivalent to a first or second year science or engineering university education. The book covers the theory and provides worked examples that allow the readers to implement their own routines to; manipulate time histories, compute elastic response spectra, develop floor design spectra, linearly scale input motions or determine frequencies and mode shapes form ambient data.Dr. Felber has given several seminars and courses on this topic both in Switzerland and Canada. This book provides a comprehensive collection of over 100 completed examples from these seminars, courses and other publications by the author. The majority of examples in this book are presented using Mathcad 15 as its worksheets show the mathematical formulation and results in a manner similar to neat hand produced engineering calculations. Furthermore, Mathcad 15 rudimentary programing ability is sufficient for all the concepts in this book. If the reader is familiar with other programing tools that have comparable graphic output capabilities then it should be straightforward to convert the routines provided here to other structured programing languages such as C++. The first few examples in this book are designed to introduce the reader to Mathcad 15 concepts. Thus for these examples, the Mathcad 15 worksheets are described in great detail. As more complex examples are introduced throughout the book, the reader is expected to become familiar with Mathcad 15 syntax and the examples will focus more on the underlying problems.Using Mathcad 15 overcomes many of the notoriously time consuming aspects of performing hand calculations or the readability/traceablilty aspects involved in using spreadsheets, that has been associated with classical dynamic analysis texts and examples. Thus more representative examples are facilitated in this book.