Critical non-structural equipment, including life-saving equipment in hospitals, circuit breakers, computers, high technology instrumentations, etc., are venerable tostrong earthquakes, and the failure of these equipments may result in a heavy economic loss. In this connection, innovative control systems and strategies are needed for their seismic protections. This paper presents the performance evaluation of passive and semi-active control in the equipment isolation system for earthquake protection. Through shaking table tests of a 3-story steel frame with equipment on the 1^nd floor, a MR-damper together with a sliding friction pendulum isolation system is placed between the equipment and floor to reduce the vibration of the equipment. Various control algorithms are used for this semi-active control studies, including the decentralized sliding mode control (DSMC) and LQR control. The passive-on and passive-off control of MR damper is used as a reference for the discussion on the control effectiveness.

Date Published: 29 April 2008
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 6932, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2008, 69320W (29 April 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.773860

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6932:
Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2008
Masayoshi Tomizuka, Editor(s)