Development and Evaluation of an Economical Arduino-Based Uniaxial Shake Table for Earthquake and Wave Simulation

Abstract

In this study, an economical prototype of a uniaxial shake table, named the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) shake table, was developed using an Arduino platform for the simulation of sinusoidal waves and scaled earthquake data. The table incorporates a ball-screw mechanism actuated by a stepper motor. Simulations were conducted using sinusoidal signals and earthquake data for three distinct seismic events, recorded at discrete timestamps. The performance of the shake table was assessed by analyzing the discrepancies between the input signals and the table’s outputs.In sinusoidal mode, a feedforward gain was computed to achieve the desired output amplitude values. Furthermore, a decreasing trend in the error between input and output acceleration values was observed. The table, without any payload, achieved an acceleration of 0.8 g at a frequency of 14.5 Hz and an amplitude of 1 mm. However, the effectiveness of earthquake simulations was constrained by the storage capacity of the Arduino Uno and the motor’s performance capacity. Iterative methods were necessary for each earthquake simulation to determine the minimal timestep size that the motor could optimally handle. The methodology for simulating earthquakes was elaborated, identifying limitations and suggesting areas for future enhancement. The major constraints of the project were cost, time, and resource availability.