Design and simulation of a desk-size parallel kinematic machine for simulation of seismic events

This paper presents the design process and the virtual testing of a lab equipment for earthquake simulations. The machine object of study is a redundantly actuated platform with parallel kinematics topology. As known, this kind of architecture owns extremely interesting features which make PKMs (Parallel Kinematics Machines) particularly feasible for recreating seismic events, in terms of displacements, accelerations and, consequently, inertial solicitations. Nonetheless, the use of a parallel over-actuated structure makes the design process challenging under many points of view: the mechanics, the sensorisation, and even the control of the shaking device must be tackled carefully from the design stage to come out with effective solutions. The paper provides details around the choices performed and shows the results of a dynamic simulations campaign to demonstrate the performance offered by the simulator in an actual use case.