Numerical and experimental investigation of rocking stability of rigid blocks during single sine-wave excitation

Abstract

Rocking stability of a rigid prismatic block standing on a rigid base subject to a simple harmonic acceleration function is still an important dynamics problem, in which energy loss is often not treated accurately enough. The energy loss at impacts during rocking is here examined. The stability for various slendernesses and sizes of a rocking block is assessed numerically, where an improved coefficient capable of estimating the size effect is considered. A number of relevant cases are validated experimentally, with a specially designed set of well-controlled and documented rocking benchmark tests on a shaking table system.

Rocking sensitivity of a dual‐block stack ‐ Numerical simulation and experimental evidence

“…The experimentally obtained results for the dual-block stack DB3L3L are shown in Figure 20, along with the numerically obtained results from Figure 16. The experiments again validate the inner numerically obtained boundary between the F I G U R E 2 1 Stability graph due to a single sine wave for block B6M with ℎ∕𝑏 = 4.5 and 𝑏 = 4.5 cm (from [17]) and for block DB3M3M with ℎ∕𝑏 = 4.5 and 𝑏 = 4.5 (from Figure 19).…”

“…Here, we compare the experimental results obtained for block DB3M3M (shown in Figure 19) with the experimental results obtained previously for a single block with the same overall dimensions and corresponding experimental setup. 17 The previously obtained experimental and numerical results for rocking stability of a single block and new results for rocking stability of the dual-block stack are shown in Figure 21.…”

“…Stability graph due to a single sine wave for block B6M with $$h/b=4.5$$ and $$b=4.5$$ cm (from [17]) and for block DB3M3M with $$h/b=4.5$$ and $$b=4.5$$ (from Figure 19). …”