Variable gain-based structural control considering the limit of AMD movement

Structural control is a new concept of earthquake resistance strategy for civil engineering structures. However, structural control, more specifically active structural control is currently under way of development. Hence there are still some issues to be solved. One of those is an issue of how buildings are to be controlled in case of very severe earthquake such as the recent Northridge and Hyogoken-nanbu earthquakes. This paper presents the application of the variable gain-based structural control taking into account the active mass damper (AMD) movement limitation. The control algorithm is based on the philosophy of “maximal admissible set of initial state”. This philosophy is originally proposed to the case of control system with no input excitation, and “initial state” is therefore regarded as “state just prior to the state” for its application to structural control system excited with external disturbances. Simulated and experimental results are presented to demonstrate how effectively and satisfactorily the methodology works