About Us
Full Scale Dynamics was incorporated in November 2008 by three internationally leading academics from the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield: Professors James Brownjohn, Aleksandar Pavic and Paul Reynolds. This was prompted by unprecedented growth in industrially-related applied research and consultancy work over the preceding 10 years.
Alex, James and Paul have worked on almost 200 commercial research and consultancy projects over the last 25 years. These projects have involved dynamic testing and analytical modelling, short and long-term vibration monitoring, vibration serviceability of large and full-scale structures in open space environments as well as management and third party checking pertinent to dynamic analysis of large civil engineering structures.
Full Scale Dynamics provies reliable, efficient and affordable access to this wealth of expertise and an unprecedented range of state-of-the-art experimental and analytical facilities. More >>
Dr Paul Reynolds, Prof Alex Pavic and Prof James Brownjohn (left to right) working on dynamic testing
in 2010.
Modal testing of SPS floors at Building Research Establishment Laboratory in
Watford, 2008.
Contour plot produced by VSATs software showing distribution of response factors across the floor area
for walking at two paces per second i.e. 2Hz.
Case Studies
| Rugeley Power Station chimney More» |
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| Office building vibration testing More» |
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| Modal test of a 6 lane Highway Bridge More» |
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| Interference effects for in-line chimneys More» |
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| Gatwick Airport Link Bridge More» |
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The 183m tall original chimney at Rugeley power station operated without incident
since it was built in 1968 until construction, in late 2006, of a replacement chimney
in the upstream direction of the prevailing wind. An investigation of cross-wind
interference effects, on the old chimney, prior to construction and commissioning
of the new chimney led to the installation of a tuned mass damper (TMD) and of a
system for monitoring performance of both TMD and chimney during the remainder of
its operational life.
The office structure is on the 2nd floor of a purpose-built office building. It has steel
primary beams at 6m centres, secondary beams at 3m centres and steel columns
approximately on a 6x12m grid.
In April 2008 the Federal Highway Agency’s Office of Infrastructure Research and
Development launched the Long Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) Program, a 20 year
project with the objective of collecting scientific quality data from the Nation’s
bridges. The information collected will provide a detailed and timely picture of bridge
health, improve knowledge of performance and promote safety, reliability and longevity
of bridges in the USA.
Following on from the Rugeley Chimney and TMD monitoring exercise, FSDL proposed
to carry out a study on interference effect for inline slender chimneys. As a result,
CICIND commissioned FSDL to provide design guidance for such effects using
numerical techniques for fluid-structure interaction based on computational fluid
dynamics and validated using the Rugeley Chimney data.
The Gatwick Airport Pier 6 Link Bridge, completed in 2005, was constructed to connect
a new pier to an existing terminal building at the airport. The bridge traverses a major
taxiway and there is sufficient clearance for Boeing 747-400 aircraft to pass underneath.
