Semi-active structural vibration control of base-isolated buildings using magnetorheological dampers

• Published in: Journal of low frequency noise, vibration, and active control Vol. 37; no. 3; pp. 565 - 576
• Main Authors: Oliveira, Fernando, Botto, Miguel Ayala, Morais, Paulo, Suleman, Afzal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2018; Sage Publications Ltd; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Active control; Active damping; Buildings; Computer simulation; Control theory; Earthquake dampers; Earthquake loads; Earthquakes; Ground motion; Mathematical models; Seismic response; Semiactive damping; Semiactive vibration isolators; Simulation; Structural vibration; Superstructures; Vibration control; magnetorheological damper; semi-active control; Structural vibration; base-isolated buildings
• ISSN: 1461-3484; 2048-4046
• DOI: 10.1177/1461348417725959

In recent years, several solutions for structural vibration control of buildings have been proposed. In particular, the combination of base-isolated structures with complementary variable damping devices has been successful in reducing the base isolator displacements without increasing the building superstructure response when subjected to earthquake loads. In this paper, a magnetorheological device is installed on a 2-DOF mechanical model mounted on an experimental uniaxial shaking table. A simple numerical simulation model is derived for the experimental setup and it represents a typical base-isolated structure with a semi-active vibration controller. The control law combines a force tracking integral action with a clipped on–off adaptation rule that changes the magnetorheological damping in real time. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is demonstrated for both earthquake-like and real earthquake input ground motions. A comparison between the numerical and the experimental results validates the numerical simulations and it gives confidence in using this model for validation and evaluation of other semi-active control solutions based on magnetorheological dampers.