Dynamic Testing of a Full Scale Highway Truss: Hammer Excitation (location 33, direction Z)

The truss was excited with hammer excitation to simulate impact test excitation. The modal sledge hammer (PCB 086D50) with softer red tip is used. The hammer hit location for this test was at node 33 in the Z direction. For each of the test configurations, data was collected for approximately 15 hits. In six of the tests, only a single direction (X, Y or Z) and either front of back panel were instrumented with 23 sensors. The seventh test was performed with the 18 sensors attached only on the lower chords front chord at six location in all 3 directions. Hence, data from this test was used to stitch together the other six tests to obtain complete 3 dimensional modal properties of the truss.The deployment of the sensors on the truss for each test is shown. In each test, the first channel was used to measure the input force excitation; modal hammer force or force transducer measurement located at the shaker and the other 23 channels were used to measure output acceleration at the nodes of the structure. Data was collected for 320 seconds at sampling frequencies of 512 Hz for the various sensor configurations. REFERENCE: Documents/Configuration file.doc for full information of test setup, data and damage cases