Hybrid Simulation of Composite Structures

Hybrid simulation is a substructural method combining a numerical simulation with a physical experiment. A structure is thereby simulated under the assumption that a substructure’s response is well known and easily modelled while a given substructure is studied more accurately in a physical experiment. The technique has primarily been used within earthquake engineering but many other fields of engineering have utilized the method with benefit. However, these previous efforts have focused on structures with a simple boundary between the numerical and physical substructure i.e. few degrees of freedom. In this dissertation the main focus is to develop hybrid simulation for composite structures e.g. wind turbine blades where the boundary between the numerical model and the physical experiment is continues i.e. in principal infinite amount of degrees of freedom. This highly complicates the transfer system and the control and monitoring techniques in the shared boundary is therefore a key issue in this type of hybrid simulation. During the research, hybrid simulation platforms have been programmed capable of running on different time scales with advanced control and monitoring techniques at the shared boundary. The hybrid simulation programs have been tested on different simple composite structures and they have proven able to increase the accuracy in tests with a complex transfer system.