• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2020

In this paper, a modified and improved seismic isolation system called suspension columns for seismic isolation was investigated. An experimental study of the proposed isolation method, together with theoretical and numerical analyses, has thoroughly been conducted. In the proposed method, during the construction of the foundation, some cavities are created at the position of the columns inside the foundation and the columns are placed inside the cavities and hanged from the foundation by flexible cables rather being directly connected to the foundation. Since the columns are suspended and due to the gap between the columns and walls of the cavities, the structure is able to move freely to each side thus, the transmitted seismic actions are reduced. The main parameter of this isolation technique is the length of the suspension cable. As the cable length is changed, the natural frequency of the structure is also changed, thus, the desired frequency can be achieved by means of an appropriate cable length. As the experimental phase of the study, a steel frame structure with two floors was constructed and subjected to the acceleration of three earthquakes using a shaking table with different hanging cable lengths. The structural responses were recorded in terms of acceleration and relative displacement. The experimental results were compared to the theoretical and numerical ones, obtained from the MATLAB programming and the finite element software ABAQUS, showing a suitable agreement between them. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed isolation method in reducing the seismic effects on the structure.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.81-88
• /
• 2011

The studies of seismic response control are mainly conducted on rahmen structure until now. Spatial structures have the different dynamic characteristics from general rahmen structures. So, the results of these studies are very limited for vibration control and seismic design of spatial structures. TMD(Tuned Mass Damper) is one of the vibration control device that is mainly used to reduce the vibration level of high-rised building, bridge or stadium structure. In this study, an arch structure was used as an example structure because it has primary characteristics of spatial structures and the seismic behaviour of spatial structures may fundamentally differ from the conventional building structures. So, the vibration control performance is evaluated according to the change of TMD mass and TMD location. It is reasonable to install TMD at the quarter point that is dominant mode vector of 1st mode, And it is appropriate that TMD mass ratio is 2% in the seismic response control of arch structure.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.81-89
• /
• 2015

Damped outrigger systems have been proposed as a novel energy dissipation system to protect tall buildings from severe earthquakes and strong wind loads. In this study, semi-active damping devices such as magnetorheological (MR) dampers instead of passive dampers are installed vertically between the outrigger and perimeter columns to achieve large and adaptable energy dissipation. Control performance of semi-active outrigger damper system mainly depends on the control algorithm. Fuzzy logic control algorithm was used to generate command voltage sent to MR damper. Genetic algorithm was used to optimize the fuzzy logic controller. An artificial earthquake load was generated for numerical simulation. A simplified numerical model of damped outrigger system was developed. Based on numerical analyses, it has been shown that the semi-active damped outrigger system can effectively reduce both displacement and acceleration responses of the tall building in comparison with a passive outrigger damper system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.305-312
• /
• 2006

In the case of hospital buildings, where seismic design requirements are very high, existing structuresand especially those attacked by past earthquakes, appear, often, unable to fulfil the necessary safety prerequisites. In this paper, the retrofitting of hospital buildings is investigated, using alternative methods of repair and strengthening. Analysis of an existing hospital building in Patras, Greece, is performed. The load-bearing system is a reinforced concrete system. Two solutions are proposed: strengthening using concrete jackets around column and beam elements and application of viscoelastic dampers for the increase of the stability of the structure. Adequate finite element models are constructed for each case and conclusions are drawn on the efficiency of each rehabilitation method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.573-591
• /
• 2004

A hybrid control system is presented for seismic-resistant building structures with and without soil-structure interaction (SSI). The hybrid control is a damper-actuator-bracing control system composed of passive and active controllers. An intelligent algorithm is developed for the hybrid system, in which the passive damper is designed for minor and moderate earthquakes and the active control is designed to activate when the structural response is greater than a given threshold quantity. Thus, the external energy for active controller can be optimally utilized. In the control of a multistory building, the controller placement is determined by evaluating the optimal location index (OLI) calculated from six earthquake sources. In the study, the soil-structure interaction is considered both in frequency domain and time domain analyses. It is found that the interaction can significantly affect the control effectiveness. In the hybrid control algorithm with intelligent strategy, the working stages of passive and active controllers can be different for a building with and without considering SSI. Thus SSI is essential to be included in predicting the response history of a controlled structure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.691-708
• /
• 2018

An innovative Hybrid Passive Resistive configuration for Truss Girder Frames (HPR-TGFs) is introduced in the present study. The proposed system is principally consisting of Fluid Viscous Dampers (FVDs) and Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) as its seismic resistive components. Concurrent utilization of these devices will develop an efficient energy dissipating mechanism which is able to mitigate lateral displacements as well as the base shear, simultaneously. However, under certain circumstances which the presence of FVDs might not be essential, the proposed configuration has the potential to incorporate double BRBs in order to achieve the redundancy of alternative load bearing paths. This study is extending the modern Direct Displacement Based Design (DDBD) procedure as the design methodology for HPR-TGF systems. Based on a series of nonlinear time history analysis, it is demonstrated that the design outcomes are almost identical to the pre-assumed design criteria. This implies that the ultimate characteristics of HPR-TGFs such as lateral stiffness and inter-story drifts are well-proportioned through the proposed design procedure.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 2003.04a
• /
• pp.193-200
• /
• 2003

This paper presents a hybrid (i.e., integrated passive-active) system for seismic response control of a cable-stayed bridge. Because multiple control devices are operating, a hybrid control system could alleviate some of the restrictions and limitations that exist when each system is acting alone. Lead rubber bearings are used as passive control devices to reduce the earthquake-induced forces in the bridge and hydraulic actuators are used as active control devices to further reduce the bridge responses, especially deck displacements. In the proposed hybrid control system, a linear quadratic Gaussian control algorithm is adopted as a primary controller. In addition, a secondary bang-bang type (i.e., on-off type) controller according to the responses of lead rubber bearings is considered to increase the controller robustness. Numerical simulation results show that control performances of the hybrid control system are superior to those of the passive control system and slightly better than those of the fully active control system. Furthermore, it is verified that the hybrid control system with a bang-bang type controller is more robust for stiffness perturbation than the active controller with μ-synthesis method and there are no signs of instability in the overall system whereas the active control system with linear quadratic Gaussian algorithm shows instabilities in the perturbed system. Therefore, the proposed hybrid protective system could effectively be used to seismically excited cable-stayed bridges.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.105-112
• /
• 2015

A shared tuned mass damper (STMD) was proposed in previous research for reduction of dynamic responses of the adjacent buildings subjected to earthquake loads. A single STMD can provide similar control performance in comparison with two traditional TMDs. In previous research, a passive damper was used to connect the STMD with adjacent buildings. In this study, a smart magnetorheological (MR) damper was used instead of a passive damper to compose an adaptive smart STMD (ASTMD). Control performance of the ASTMD was investigated by numerical analyses. For this purpose, two 8-story buildings were used as example structures. Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was used to control the command voltages sent to two MR dampers. The MIMO FLC was optimized by a multi-objective genetic algorithm. Numerical analyses showed that the ASTMD can effectively control dynamic responses of adjacent buildings subjected to earthquake excitations in comparison with a passive STMD.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.455-467
• /
• 2023

Impact damper is a passive damping system that controls undesirable vibration with mass block impacting with stops fixed to the excited structure, introducing momentum exchange and energy dissipation. However, harmful momentum exchange may occur in the random excitation increasing structural response. Based on the mechanism of impact damping system, a semi-active impact damper (SAID) with controllable impact timing as well as a semi-active control strategy is proposed to enhance the seismic performance of engineering structures in this paper. Comparative experimental studies were conducted to investigate the damping performances of the passive impact damper and SAID. The extreme working conditions for SAID were also discussed and approaches to enhance the damping effect under high-intensity excitations were proposed. A numerical simulation model of SAID attached to a frame structure was established to further explore the damping mechanism. The experimental and numerical results show that the SAID has better control effect than the traditional passive impact damper and can effectively broaden the damping frequency band. The parametric studies illustrate the mass ratio and impact damping ratio of SAID can significantly influence the vibration control effect by affecting the impact force.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.64 no.6
• /
• pp.731-736
• /
• 2017

Friction Pendulum isolators are tools developed in the past few decades. The simplest form of these isolators, are FPS whose main disadvantages are having a constant frequency independent of the frequency of the structure. For this reason, researchers have invented VFPI isolator whose frequency is variable and depends on displacement. Another friction pendulum isolator is DCFP isolator which is a combination of two FPS isolators. In this article, first by changing the geometry of DCFP isolator plates from spherical to elliptical, the motion and frequency equations of DVFPI isolators are defined, and then the seismic behavior of DVFPI isolators are analyzed in various geometric and plate friction settings using motion equations, and confirmed using ABAQUS software. The most important results of this study are that the hysteresis behavior of DVFPI isolators are severely nonlinear, its curve follows two distinct curvatures, and that the restoring force is faced with softening mechanism that limits the seismic force transmitted to the structure, whereas the restoring force in DCFP isolators increases linearly with increasing displacement.