Structural Testing & Data Analysis of PRL 2.5m Telescope Pier

  • Associated with: Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad
  • Mentor: Kapil Kumar Bharadwaj, Scientist/Engineer, PRL
  • Started: Jan, 2022
  • Completed: Jul, 2022
  • Under subject: Full-time Internship
  • Sources: GitHub

  • Abstract

    The objective of this effort was to analyse and validate the modal properties of a pier structure of PRL's 2.5m Mt. Abu telescope. The goal was to achieve its first fundamental frequency around 30 Hz so that it can be isolated from any vibrations of the telescope itself. To asses the modal properties, various time series acceleration data of ambient responses of piers recorded using piezo-electric transducers. This data is further condensed by applying a time series algorithm called Frequency Domain Decomposition resulting into giving the actual natural frequencies of the pier structure. The Frequency Domain Decomposition algorithm is coded in Python. Also, for damping estimation another program based on Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition is developed. The result is found that the true first fundamental natural frequency is higher than the theoretical first natural frequency making the structure design conservative on its own.


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