Dear participants,
we hope you are doing well and staying safe!
We would like to inform you that due to the very difficult Coronasituation in Portugal, we are experiencing delays related to the test data. For the moment, we are not yet quite certain when we can obtain the test data. For this reason, we can unfortunately not yet set new deadlines. We will follow up with the precise new deadlines as soon as the test data becomes available.
Also, we have received a set of questions from one of the participants, to which we would like to reply here so that all the participants are familiar with the answers:
Question 1: Our contribution -“papers by groups”- is going to be part of the special issue, which presumably is going to be introduced by a general paper providing details about the context, campaign planning and tests results. However, if everything is published at the same time, we will not be able to refer to that overarching paper. We were wondering, once you share the experimental data with us, how much of context and results we should incorporate in the group paper so we will not step outside of the scope of that modality, yet providing enough background for the paper to stand alone. Maybe it is a question better left to the discretion of the authors, but overall, it could be convenient if you could specify which points we should and -most importantly- should not tackle.
Answer 1: The papers by groups should cite Paper 1 (Planning of the test and test results) and Paper 2 (Blind Prediction summary).
Question 2: Question regarding the pre-diction phase: is it expected from the groups to “update the pre-diction” and re-run the initial model but with the actual loading sequence? That is, we did the pre-diction considering a loading sequence that in practice could not be perfectly applied. According to your e-mail from 19th Nov 2020, the actual sequence was: 0.0, 0.1, 0.2 (12.5% shake table capacity); 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 (25% shake table capacity); 2.1 (50% shake table capacity, longitudinal, but the table overshot up to 0.62g). In other words, should the “update of the old model with the actual input signal” be part of the pre-diction part -some sort of “pre-diction update”? If that is the case, we will wait for you to provide the actual input signal so we may apply it to the initial model and adjust the pre-diction. On the contrary, it may be the case that any further works (even that pre-diction update) are going to be considered already part of post-diction. Please let us know what is your stand on this aspect so that the groups may be consistent in their respective approaches.
Answer 2: Ideally, if the groups have enough time and the model which is not too computationally heavy to do so, they should repeat the simulation with the pre-diction model and the actual loading sequence, as you named it – “pre-diction update”.
Question 3: We are considering that no model of the strengthened configuration is expected in any case. Please correct us otherwise.
Answer 3: The strengthening after run 2.1 should be modelled in the post-diction.
Question 4: Regarding the post-diction phase, the following data is supposed to be available: recorded accelerations and displacements; frequencies and damping results for each stage; simple compression tests. Do you intend to share the data already processed and -when convenient- filtered? Or is it going to be provided in its raw version?
Answer 4: The data will be shared in a filtered format.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for any questions.