Control strategies for a distributed mass damper system

Recent developments of a distributed mass damper (DMD) system integrate structural and environmental control systems for buildings. External shading fins are used as mass dampers such that they can (i) control building energy consumption by adjusting the fins and, thus, the amount of sunlight coming into the building and (ii) control structural movements by dissipating energy with the dampers during strong motions due to wind or earthquakes. Shading fins are placed along the height of the building, distributing the mass along the building instead of being concentrated in a few locations like traditional tuned mass dampers (TMDs). This eliminates any large damper mass on the top of the building that can be a structural and architectural challenge to design. The DMD system is formulated, simulated and analyzed with passive, active and semiactive control strategies. The passive DMD is shown to be as effective in response mitigation as a conventional TMD; active and semiactive strategies give further improvements. The building energy consumption using the movable shading fins is also briefly presented in this paper.