• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.287-303
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• 2018

Applications of energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations is becoming popular but the full potential of such applications is yet to be explored. This paper addresses this issue by considering an application of energy harvesting for the dual objective of serving as an indicator of structural health monitoring (SHM) and extent of control. Variation of harvested energy from an undamaged baseline is employed for this purpose and the concept is illustrated by implementing it for active vibrations of a pipe structure. Theoretical and experimental analyses are carried out to determine the energy harvesting potential from undamaged and damaged conditions. The use of energy harvesting as indicator for control is subsequently investigated, considering the effect of the introduction of a tuned mass damper (TMD). It is found that energy harvesting can be used for the detection and monitoring of the location and magnitude of damage occurring within a pipe structure. Additionally, the harvested energy acts as an indicator of the extent of reduction of vibration of pipes when a TMD is attached. This paper extends the range of applications of energy harvesting devices for the monitoring of built infrastructure and illustrates the vast potential of energy harvesters as smart sensors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.78 no.3
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• pp.305-317
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• 2021

An AMD control system is usually built based on the original model of a target building. As a result, the fact leads a large calculation workload exists. Therefore, the orders of a structural model should be reduced appropriately. Among various model-reduction methods, a suitable reduced-order model is important to high-rise buildings. Meanwhile, a partial structural information is discarded directly in the model-reduction process, which leads to the accuracy reduction of its controller design. In this paper, an optimal technique is selected through comparing several common model-reduction methods. Then, considering the dynamic characteristics of a high-rise building, an improved balanced truncation (BT) method is proposed for establishing its reduced-order model. The abandoned structural information, including natural frequencies, damping ratios and modal information of the original model, is reconsidered. Based on the improved reduced-order model, a new reduced-order controller is designed by a regional pole-placement method. A high-rise building with an AMD system is regarded as an example, in which the energy distribution, the control effects and the control parameters are used as the indexes to analyze the performance of the improved reduced-order controller. To verify its effectiveness, the proposed methodology is also applied to a four-storey experimental frame. The results demonstrate that the new controller has a stable control performance and a relatively short calculation time, which provides good potential for structural vibration control of high-rise buildings.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.21-32
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• 2013

This is a preliminary study for the real-time feedback vibration control of building structures. The study developed a wireless acceleration sensor system based on authentic technology capacities, to integrate with the Prototype AMD system and ultimately construct the feedback vibration control system. These systems were used to evaluate the basic performance levels of the control systems within model building structures. For this purpose, the study first developed a wireless acceleration sensor unit that integrates an MEMS sensor device and bluetooth communication module. Also, the study developed an operating program that enables control output based on real-time acceleration response measurement and control law. Furthermore, the Prototype AMD and motor driver system were constructed to be maneuvered by the AC servo-motor. Eventually, all these compositions were used to evaluate the real-time feedback vibration control system of a 2-story model building, and qualitatively measure the extent of vibrational reduction of the target structure within the laboratory validation tests. As a result of the tests, there was a definite vibrational reduction effect within the laboratory validation tests. As a result of the tests, there was a definite vibrational reduction effect within 1st and 2nd resonance frequency as well as the random frequency of the model building structure. Ultimately, this study confirmed the potential of its wireless acceleration sensor system and AMD system as an effective tool that can be applied to the active vibration control of other structures.