Japanese Activities on On‐Line Testing

The on‐line computer test control method (the on‐line test) is a new experimental technique to directly simulate the earthquake response behavior of structural systems without using a shake table device. This paper presents a review of Japanese activities in the development and application of the on‐line test. First, the history of the development of the on‐line test and its software and hardware algorithms are described, and 27 previous on‐line tests conducted by Japanese researchers are summarized. Second, the reliability of the on‐line test is discussed. Sources that may bring errors in the response are defined, and efforts to examine their effects on the response and to control the response error growth are introduced. Third, two extensions of the on‐line test concept are presented: the fast on‐line test and the substructure on‐line test.