Semi-active adaptive control of seismically excited 20-story nonlinear building

An adaptive controller has adjustable parameters and a mechanism for modifying them. It can continuously monitor its own performance in relation to a given condition and has a means of modifying its own parameters by a closed loop action to approach optimum performance. The effectiveness of using the Simple Adaptive Control Method (SACM) to enhance the performance of structures with linear behavior was previously studied. In this study, the SACM is used to control the response of a tall building with nonlinear behavior and equipped with magnetorheological (MR) dampers. The performance of SACM is compared with other control methods and results show that this method is successful to improve the structural performance of a nonlinear building subjected to earthquakes.