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An experimental study of MR dampers for seismic protection

This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article. 1998 Smart Mater. Struct. 7 693 (http://iopscience.iop.org/0964-1726/7/5/012) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

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Smart Mater. Struct. 7 (1998) 693703. Printed in the UK

PII: S0964-1726(98)96181-X

An experimental study of MR dampers for seismic protection

S J Dyke, B F Spencer Jr, M K Sain and J D Carlson
Department of Civil Engineering, Washington University, St Louis, MO 63130, USA Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Mechanical Products Division, Lord Corporation, Cary, NC 27511, USA Received 13 March 1997, accepted for publication 23 June 1997 Abstract. In this paper, the efcacy of magnetorheological (MR) dampers for seismic response reduction is examined. To investigate the performance of the MR damper, a series of experiments was conducted in which the MR damper is used in conjunction with a recently developed clipped-optimal control strategy to control a three-story test structure subjected to a one-dimensional ground excitation. The ability of the MR damper to reduce both peak responses, in a series of earthquake tests, and rms responses, in a series of broadband excitation tests, is shown. Additionally, because semi-active control systems are nonlinear, a variety of disturbance amplitudes are considered to investigate the performance of this control system over a variety of loading conditions. For each case, the results for three clipped-optimal control designs are presented and compared to the performance of two passive systems. The results indicate that the MR damper is quite effective for structural response reduction over a wide class of seismic excitations.

1. Introduction In the last three decades or so, there has been a great deal of interest in the use of control systems to mitigate the effects of dynamic environmental hazards such as earthquakes and strong winds on civil engineering structures. A variety of control systems have been considered for these applications that can be classied as either passive, active, semi-active or hybrid (combinations of the previous types). Passive control systems, such as viscoelastic dampers, tuned mass dampers, frictional dampers, tuned liquid dampers and base-isolation systems, were developed as a means of augmenting the damping in a structure [30]. Passive systems impart forces on the structure by reacting to the localized motion of the structure, primarily acting to dissipate the vibratory energy in the structural system. These systems are now widely accepted as a viable means of reducing the responses of a structure. However, passive systems are limited because they cannot adapt to varying loading conditions. Thus, passive systems may perform well subjected to the loading conditions for which they were designed, but may not be effective in other situations. To develop a more versatile alternative, the concept of active control was introduced by Yao in 1972 [38]. Active control systems operate by using external energy supplied by actuators to impart forces on the structure, generally depending on a sizeable power supply. The appropriate control action is typically determined based
0964-1726/98/050693+11$19.50 c 1998 IOP Publishing Ltd

on measurements of the structural responses and/or the disturbance. Because the control forces are not entirely dependent on the local motion of the structure (although there is some dependence on the local response due to the effects of controlstructure interaction), the control systems are considerably more exible in their ability to reduce the structural responses for a wide variety of loading conditions. Extensive research has been done on active structural control [1623, 29], and these systems have been installed in over twenty commercial buildings and more than ten bridges (during construction) [16, 23]. However, there are still a number of questions that must be addressed before this technology is widely accepted, including questions of stability, cost effectiveness, reliability, power requirements etc. For instance, active systems have the ability to input mechanical energy into the structural system, making them capable of generating instabilities due to unmodeled dynamics and nonlinearities, or equipment failure (e.g., power source, sensors, control hardware/software etc). Additionally, the need for sizeable power supplies and large control forces may make them quite costly to install and maintain. Semi-active systems offer another alternative in structural control. A variety of semi-active control devices have been proposed, including variable orice dampers, variable friction devices, adjustable tuned liquid dampers and controllable uid dampers. These systems have attracted much attention recently because they possess the
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adaptability of active control systems, yet are intrinsically stable and operate using very low power. Typically, a semi-active control device is dened as one that cannot increase the mechanical energy in the controlled system (i.e., including both the structure and the device), but has properties that can be dynamically varied. Because these devices are adaptable, they are expected to be quite effective for structural response reduction over a wide range of loading conditions. Additionally, semi-active control devices do not require large power sources such as those associated with active control systems, making them quite attractive for seismic applications. Moreover, semi-active devices are inherently stable (in a bounded inputbounded output sense), which makes it possible to implement high authority control strategies which, in practice, may result in performances that can surpass that of comparable active systems. One semi-active device that appears to be particularly promising for seismic protection is the magnetorheological (MR) damper [4, 5, 1115, 3234]. MR dampers use MR uids to produce controllable dampers. MR uids are the magnetic analogs of electrorheological (ER) uids [17, 18, 25, 27, 28, 36], and, like ER uids, the essential characteristic of the MR uids is their ability to reversibly change from a free-owing, linear viscous uid to a semisolid in milliseconds when exposed to a magnetic eld (or in the case of ER uids, an electric eld). A typical MR uid consists of 2040% by volume of relatively pure, soft iron particles, e.g. carbonyl iron, suspended in an appropriate carrier liquid such as mineral oil, synthetic oil, water or a glycol. Particle diameter is typically 3 to 5 microns. A variety of proprietary additives similar to those found in commercial lubricants are commonly added that discourage gravitational settling and promote particle suspension, enhance lubricity, modify viscosity and inhibit wear. The ultimate strength of a MR uid depends on the square of the saturation magnetization of the suspended particle [3, 5, 19, 20], and the key to a strong MR uid is to choose a particle with a large saturation magnetization. Pure iron particles, the best practical choice, have a saturation magnetization of 2.15 T [5] and MR uids made from iron particles exhibit a yield strength of 50 100 kPa for an applied magnetic eld of 150250 kA m1 . Although the characteristics of MR and ER uids are similar in some respects, devices which are based on MR uids appear to have a number of advantages, making them extremely promising for civil engineering applications [1, 2]. For example, the achievable yield stress of MR uids is an order of magnitude greater than its ER counterpart, making it possible to develop devices which are capable of generating larger forces. Additionally, MR uids are not highly sensitive to contaminants or impurities such as are commonly encountered during manufacture and usage. Further, because the magnetic polarization mechanism is not affected by the surface chemistry of surfactants and additives, it is relatively straightforward to stabilize MR uids against particleliquid separation in spite of the large density mismatch. Antiwear and lubricity additives can also be included in the formulation without affecting strength and power requirements. Devices
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employing the MR uid can be controlled with a low power (e.g., less than 50 watts), low voltage (e.g., 1224 V), current-driven power supply outputting only 12 amps, which could be readily supplied by batteries. MR uids have been used to develop semi-active control devices for a variety of applications, including braking devices in exercise equipment, and actuators in vehicular seat suspension systems [14]. MR uid technology appears to be scalable to the size required for seismic control applications. To demonstrate the feasibility of producing forces required for full-scale structures, Lord Corporation has recently designed and built a 20 ton MR damper. Testing on the full-scale MR damper is currently under way at the University of Notre Dame [4, 5]. Because MR dampers are intrinsically nonlinear, one of the challenges is to develop appropriate control algorithms to take advantage of the unique characteristics of the device. Various approaches have been proposed in the literature for the control of semi-active systems (see, for example, [12, 13, 24, 25, 28]). To be implementable, the algorithms must use readily available measurements, such as accelerations, in determining the control action. Previously, a number of active control experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the efcacy of acceleration feedback control strategies based on H2 /LQG techniques [7, 9, 10, 13]. For semi-actively controlled structures, Dyke et al [1115] have extended these results to develop a clipped-optimal control strategy based on acceleration feedback, and shown the effectiveness of this approach. The focus of this paper is to experimentally demonstrate the ability of the MR damper to reduce structural responses over a wide range of loading conditions. Following a description of the experimental setup, the procedure used to identify a model of the integrated MR damper/structure is described. A clipped-optimal control algorithm, recently developed for use with the MR damper [1115], is then discussed. In the experiments, the ability of the system to reduce both the peak responses, in the case of the earthquake excitation, and rms response, in the case of the broadband excitation, is studied. Due to the intrinsic nonlinear behavior of the MR damper, the performance of the control system will vary with the magnitude of the disturbance. Thus, the amplitude of the disturbance was also varied in the tests. The performance of the semiactively controlled structure is compared to that of two cases in which the MR damper is used in a passive mode, designated passive-off and passive-on. The results reported herein indicate that this semi-active control system is quite effective for seismic response reduction over a wide range of seismic excitations. 2. Experimental setup Figure 1 is a diagram of the semi-actively controlled, three-story, model building at the Structural Dynamics and Control/Earthquake Engineering Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame (http://www.nd.edu/quake/). The test structure used in this experiment is designed to be a scale model of the prototype building discussed in Chung et al [6] and is subjected to a one-dimensional

MR dampers for seismic protection

Figure 3. Simple mechanical model of the MR damper.

Figure 1. Diagram of MR damper implementation.

of the absolute accelerations, x a 1 x a 2 x a 3 , an LVDT (linear variable differential transformer) measures the displacement xd of the MR damper, and a force transducer is placed in series with the MR damper to measure the control force f being applied to the structure. Note that only these ve measurements are used in the control algorithm. However, to evaluate the performance of the control strategies, LVDTs are attached to the base and to each oor of the structure to measure the relative displacements of the structure. Implementation of the discrete controller was performed using the Spectrum Signal Processing Real-Time Digital Signal Processor (DSP) System. A discussion of the specic capabilities of this board which make it suitable for use in structural control systems is provided in Quast et al [37].

Figure 2. Schematic of MR damper.

3. System identication ground motion. The building frame is constructed of steel, with a height of 158 cm. The oor masses of the model weigh a total of 227 kg, distributed evenly between the three oors. The time scale factor is 0.2, making the natural frequencies of the model approximately ve times those of the prototype. More information on this test structure is available in [35]. In this experiment, a single magnetorheological (MR) damper is installed between the ground and the rst oor, as shown in gure 1. The MR damper employed here is a prototype device, shown schematically in gure 2, obtained from the Lord Corporation for testing and evaluation [33] (see also http://www.mruid.com). The damper is 21.5 cm long in its extended position and has a 2.5 cm stroke. The main cylinder is 3.8 cm in diameter and houses the piston, the magnetic circuit, an accumulator and 50 ml of MR uid. The magnetic eld produced in the device is generated by a small electromagnet in the piston head. The current for the electromagnet is supplied by a linear current driver which generates a current that is proportional to the applied voltage. The peak power required is less than 10 watts. The system, including the damper and the current driver, has a response time of typically less than 10 ms. A number of sensors are installed in the model building for use in determining the control action. Accelerometers located on each of the three oors provide measurements One of the most important and challenging tasks in control synthesis and analysis is the development of an accurate mathematical model of the structural system under consideration, including both the structure and the associated control devices. The approach to system identication of semi-actively controlled structures outlined in [32] is employed. In this approach, the problem is simplied by decoupling the identication of the nonlinear semi-active device from that of the primary structure. If the semi-active controller is assumed to be adequate to keep the response of the primary structure in the linear range, then standard linear system identication techniques can be used to develop a model for the primary structure. Nonlinear identication means must still be employed to identify the semi-active control device. Additionally, this approach is attractive because the identication of the semi-active system requires only measurements which are available for controlling the responses of the structure. The approach consists of four steps: (i) modeling and identication of the semi-active control device, (ii) identication of a model of the primary structure, (iii) integration and optimization of the device and structural models and (iv) validation of the integrated model of the system. These steps are briey described in the subsequent sections.
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Figure 4. Comparison of the model results and the experimental data for the random displacement, random voltage test.

3.1. Modeling and identication of the MR damper The rst step in the identication process is to develop an input/output model for the MR damper. The simple mechanical idealization of the MR damper depicted in gure 3 has been shown to accurately predict the behavior of a prototype MR damper over a broad range of inputs [31, 33]. The equations governing the force f predicted by this model are given by + k1 xd x0 f = c1 y |z | + A x |z|z| x d t d y z = |x d y 1 z + c0 x d + k 0 xd y y = c0 + c1
n n1

constrained nonlinear optimization to obtain the 14 model parameters in equations (1)(5). The optimization was performed using the sequential quadratic programming algorithm available in MATLAB [26]. A representative comparison of the response predicted by this model and the experimentally measured response for the MR damper is shown in gure 4. The resulting parameters were used to initialize the identication of the integrated system model, presented subsequently. 3.2. Identication of the primary structure The next step in identifying a model of the integrated system is to develop an input/output model of the structure. Because the structure itself is assumed to remain in the linear region, the frequency domain approach to linear system identication discussed in Dyke et al [7, 9, 10, 13] and Spencer and Dyke [32] is used to identify a mathematical model of the test structure. A block diagram of the structural system to be identied is shown in gure 5. There are two inputs to the structural system, including the ground excitation x g and the applied control force f . The four measured system outputs are the displacement xd of the structure at the attachment point of the MR damper, and the absolute accelerations, x a 1 , a 3 , of the three oors of the test structure (i.e., x a2 , x a 1 x a 2 x a 3 ] ). Thus, a 4 2 transfer function y = [xd x matrix must be identied to describe the characteristics of the system in gure 5. The rst step in the identication of the structure is to experimentally determine the transfer functions from each of the system inputs to each of the outputs. The eight transfer functions are determined by independently exciting each of the inputs of the structure with a random input and measuring the structural responses. The transfer functions from the ground acceleration to each of the measured

(1) (2) (3)

where z is an evolutionary variable that accounts for the history dependence of the response. The model parameters depend on the voltage v to the current driver as follows c0 = c0a + c0b u (4) where u is given as the output of the rst-order lter u = (u v). (5) = a + b u c1 = c1a + c1b u

Equation (5) is necessary to model the dynamics involved in reaching rheological equilibrium and in driving the electromagnet in the MR damper [31, 33]. A nominal set of parameters was obtained based on the response of the MR damper in a series of displacementcontrolled tests. A hydraulic actuator was employed to drive the MR damper, and the displacement and force generated in the MR damper were measured, as described in [31, 33]. A typical response of the MR damper for a sinusoidal input is shown in gure 4. A least-squares output-error method was employed in conjunction with a
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MR dampers for seismic protection

3.3. Development of an integrated system model The next step in identifying a model of the integrated structural system is to optimize the set of parameters for the MR damper model (equations (1)(5)) for the case when it is installed in the test structure, and combine the models of the device and structure to form the integrated system model (shown in gure 7). Updating the parameters of the MR damper model is necessary because the MR damper may function at a different operating point when installed in the test structure than in the initial tests in which the damper was driven with a hydraulic actuator [32]. To update the parameters of the MR damper model, a series of tests was conducted to measure the response of the structure with the MR damper in place in the test structure (see gure 1). In these tests, the structure was excited at the base, while various voltages v were applied to the current driver of the MR damper. The recorded system responses included the force generated in the MR damper, absolute accelerations of each oor, displacement of the oors of the structure, displacement of the base and displacement of the three oors of the structure. Optimized parameters were determined to t the generalized model of the MR damper to the experimental data. The resulting parameters are: c0a = 8 N s cm1 , c0b = 6 N s cm1 V1 , k0 = 50 N cm1 , c1a = 290 N s cm1 , c1b = 5 N s cm1 V1 , k1 = 12 N cm1 , x0 = 14.3 cm, a = 100, b = 450 V1 , = 363 cm2 , = 363 cm2 , A = 301, n = 2, = 190 s1 . The integrated system model is then formed by connecting the models of the MR damper (equations (1) (5)) and structure (equation (6)) as shown in gure 7. Verication of this integrated system model is provided in the following section. 3.4. Experimental validation of the integrated system model To verify that the identied model is adequate for control synthesis and analysis, the predicted response and experimental response were compared in one controlled case (controller A as described in the following section). A representative comparison of the experimental and predicted responses for the relative displacement and absolute acceleration of the third oor is shown in gure 8 for a broadband excitation (020 Hz) with an rms ground acceleration of 0.20 g . Good agreement is obtained. 4. Clipped-optimal control algorithm One of the main challenges in semi-active control is the development of an appropriate control algorithm that can take advantage of the features of the control device to produce an effective control system. An important requirement of the control algorithm is that it be implementable in full-scale applications. To be implementable, the algorithm should use available measurements, such as accelerations, in determining the control action. Dyke et al [11, 12] have proposed a clippedoptimal control strategy based on acceleration feedback for
697

Figure 5. System identication block diagram.

responses were obtained by exciting the structure with a band-limited white noise ground acceleration (050 Hz). During this test, the MR damper is not connected to the structure, thus making f = 0. Similarly, the experimental transfer functions from the applied control force to each of the measured outputs are determined. To this end, the MR damper is replaced with a hydraulic actuator to apply a band-limited white noise (05 Hz) force to the structure while the base of the structure is held xed. The force transducer, mentioned previously, is placed in series with the hydraulic actuator to directly measure the applied force. A representative transfer function from the ground acceleration to the third oor absolute acceleration is shown in gure 6. This transfer function was obtained using twenty averages. The three distinct, lightly damped peaks occurring at 5.88, 17.5 and 28.3 Hz correspond to the rst three modes of the structural system. Once the experimental transfer functions have been obtained, the next step in the system identication procedure is to model each transfer function as a ratio of two polynomials in the Laplace variable s . This task is accomplished via a least-squares t of the ratio polynomials, evaluated on the j axis, to the experimentally obtained transfer functions. For this structure, the decision was made to focus control efforts on reducing the structural responses in the rst three modes. Thus, the model is required to be accurate below 35 Hz. Six poles are necessary to model the input/output behavior of each of the transfer functions in the frequency range of interest. The system is then assembled in state space form using the analytical representation of the transfer functions (i.e., the poles, zeros and gain). Because all of the transfer functions required six states, the combined system has a total of twelve poles. A model reduction is performed to achieve a minimal realization of the system; thus, the twelve-state system was reduced to a six-state system, resulting in a reduced-order model of the form x r = Axr + B f + E x g y = Cy xr + Dy f + v (6)

where v represents the measurement noise vector. A representative comparison of the reduced-order model to the experimental transfer functions is shown in gure 6. Additional details regarding this frequency domain identication approach can be found in Dyke et al [7 10, 13].

S J Dyke et al

Figure 6. Comparison of reduced-order model and experimental transfer function: ground accelertion to third oor absolute acceleration.

Figure 7. Block diagram of the identied integrated structural system.

Figure 8. Experimental and predicted responses of the semi-actively controlled system (controller A): third oor relative displacement and absolute acceleration.

the MR damper. Analytical studies demonstrated that the MR damper, used in conjunction with the clipped optimalcontrol algorithm, was effective for controlling a multistory structure with a single MR damper. In this section, the
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approach to the design of the clipped-optimal controller is provided. The discussion of the control algorithm considers the general case in which there are multiple devices present to control the structure, although in this experiment only a

MR dampers for seismic protection

single MR damper is employed. In the clipped-optimal controller, the approach is to append n force feedback loops to induce each MR damper to produce approximately a desired control force. The desired control force of the i th MR damper is denoted fci . A linear optimal controller Kc (s) is designed that calculates a vector of desired control forces, fc = [fc1 fc2 . . . fcn ] , based on the measured structural response vector y and the measured control force vector f , i.e., fc = L1 Kc (s)L y f (7)
Figure 9. Graphical representation of algorithm for selecting the command signal.

where L{} is the Laplace transform. Although the controller Kc (s) can be obtained from a variety of synthesis methods, H2 /LQG strategies are advocated herein because of the stochastic nature of earthquake ground motions and because of their successful application in other civil engineering structural control applications [7, 9, 10, 13]. To discuss the algorithm used for determining the control action, consider the i th MR damper used to control the structure. Because the response of the MR damper is dependent on the relative structural displacements and velocities at the point of attachment of the MR damper, the force generated by the MR damper cannot be commanded; only the voltage vi applied to the current driver of the i th MR damper can be directly controlled. To induce the MR damper to generate approximately the corresponding desired optimal control force fci , the command signal vi is selected as follows. When the i th MR damper is providing the desired optimal force (i.e., fi = fci ), the voltage applied to the damper should remain at the present level. If the magnitude of the force produced by the damper is smaller than the magnitude of the desired optimal force and the two forces have the same sign, the voltage applied to the current driver is increased to the maximum level so as to increase the force produced by the damper to match the desired control force. Otherwise, the commanded voltage is set to zero. The algorithm for selecting the command signal for the i th MR damper is graphically represented in gure 9 and can be concisely stated as vi = Vmax H fci fi fi (8)

Figure 10. Block diagram of the semi-active control system.

5. Experimental results To evaluate the performance of the semi-active control system employing the MR damper, eight controllers with various performance objectives were designed based on the identied model of the integrated structure/MR damper system and implemented in the laboratory. The results of three semi-active control designs, denoted AC, are presented herein. Controller A was designed by placing a high weighting on the third oor relative displacement. Controllers B and C were designed by placing a low and high weighting, respectively, on the third oor acceleration. In the results, xi is the displacement of the i th oor relative ai to the ground, di is the interstory drift (i.e., xi xi 1 ), x is the absolute acceleration of the i th oor and f is the measured control force. In addition to the results for semi-active controllers, two passive cases are considered. Passive-off and passive-on refer to the cases in which the voltage to the MR damper is held at a constant value of V = 0 and V = Vmax = 2.25 V, respectively. The uncontrolled response refers to the case in which the MR damper is not attached to the structure. Two types of experiment were conducted to evaluate the performance of the control designs. In the rst set of tests, the three-story model structure was subjected to a scaled 1940 El Centro earthquake and the peak values of the measured responses were determined. In these tests, the earthquake was reproduced at ve times the recorded
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where Vmax is the voltage to the current driver associated with saturation of the MR effect in the tested device, and H () is the Heaviside step function. A block diagram of this semi-active control system is shown in gure 10. In the block diagram, the dependence of the MR damper forces on the structural responses is indicated by the link feeding back the vectors xr and x r , which contain the relative structural displacements and velocities at the attachment points of the MR damper. For instance, if three MR dampers were rigidly attached between the rst three oors of a structure, this vector would be xr = [x1 x2 x1 x3 x2 ] . One of the attractive features of this control strategy is that the feedback for the controller is based on readily obtainable acceleration measurements, thus making them quite implementable. In addition, the proposed control design does not require a model for the MR damper, although the model of the damper is important to system analysis.

S J Dyke et al

speed to satisfy the similitude relations. In the second set of tests, the three-story model structure was subjected to a 200 second broadband signal (020 Hz) and rms values of the measured responses were calculated. Because the MR damper is a nonlinear device, its performance will vary for different excitation levels. Thus, the earthquake tests were performed at two different excitation amplitudes (80% and 120% of the recorded El Centro earthquake) and the broadband tests were conducted at three different input amplitudes including excitations with rms values of 0.06 g (low), 0.13 g (medium) and 0.20 g (high). Because in some cases the excitation levels used in the passive and controlled tests were quite large for the test structure, exciting the uncontrolled structure with the same excitation could have been destructive. Therefore, the uncontrolled results presented herein were obtained by using an excitation with 50% of that used in the controlled tests, and then scaling the uncontrolled structural responses up to represent the response of the structure to the full excitation. Thus the uncontrolled results represent the response of the structure if it were to remain linear throughout the tests. The experimental results are summarized in the following sections. 5.1. El Centro earthquake results Table 1 summarizes the results of the high and low amplitude El Centro earthquake excitation tests. Notice that both the passive-off and passive-on systems are able to achieve a reasonable level of performance at high and low excitation levels. Because the MR damper is capable of generating larger damping forces in the passive-on case than in the passive-off case, one might predict that the passiveon system would achieve larger reductions in the responses. However, from the results it is shown that a number of the responses of the passive-on system are actually larger than those of the passive-off system. For instance, in the low amplitude tests, the third oor displacement, maximum interstory displacement and maximum oor acceleration of the passive-on system are 11.3%, 10.9% and 19.0% larger, respectively, than the responses of the passiveoff system. In the high amplitude tests, the passive-on controller performs better than the passive-off controller in reducing the peak third oor displacement and maximum interstory displacement, but an increase in the absolute accelerations is still observed. The results presented in table 1 show that all of the semi-active control systems perform signicantly better than the passive systems. In the high amplitude tests, controller A achieves a 24.3% reduction in the peak third oor displacement and a 29.1% reduction in the maximum interstory displacement over the best passive responses. Furthermore, these reductions were obtained while achieving a modest reduction in the maximum acceleration. Additional reduction in the peak third oor relative displacement over the best passive case is achieved with controller C (33.3%), although with an increase in the maximum acceleration. Notice that for all of the semiactively controlled systems, these performance gains are
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achieved while requiring signicantly smaller control forces than are required in the passive-on case. At low excitation amplitudes, the performance of the semi-active controllers is still superior to that of the passive controllers, although not to as great an extent. The third oor relative displacement, maximum interstory displacement and maximum absolute acceleration are reduced over the best passive case by 11.3%, 27.8% and 3.6%, respectively, with controller A. Again, additional reduction in the third oor relative displacement is achieved with controllers B (20%) and C (23.3%), although the maximum acceleration response is increased in these cases. Figure 11 shows the uncontrolled and semi-actively controlled (using controller A) responses for the tested structure. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is clearly seen, with peak third oor displacement being reduced by 74.5% and the peak third oor acceleration being reduced by 47.6% over the uncontrolled responses. 5.2. Random excitation results The rms values of the structural responses in the random excitation test are provided in table 2. Here, the passive systems are able to achieve reasonable reduction in the structural responses at all excitation levels. In the high amplitude tests, most of the rms responses of the passiveon system are better than those of the passive-off system. However, at lower excitation levels, the rms responses of the passive-on system are often larger than those of the passive-off system. For instance, in both the low and medium amplitude tests, the maximum rms acceleration is larger in the passive-on case than in the passive-off case. Additionally, in the low amplitude test, the maximum interstory displacement is 25% larger in the passive-on case than in the passive-off case. This demonstrates that using a passive device which is capable of generating large control forces is not always the best approach. The results indicate that the semi-active control systems perform signicantly better at reducing the rms structural responses than the passive systems. At all excitation levels, the three semi-active controllers are able to reduce not only the rms third oor relative displacements and interstory displacements, but also the maximum rms oor accelerations, well below those obtained with the passive systems. Controller B achieves the best performance of the three semi-active control designs, reducing the third oor displacement, maximum interstory displacement and the maximum oor absolute acceleration, by 14.6%, 26.5% and 23.6%, respectively, over the best passive case in the high amplitude tests, and by 17.8%, 30.0% and 8.0% in the medium amplitude tests. Even at low amplitudes, a modest reduction in the structural responses is observed. Again, notice that the semi-active controllers achieve these performance levels while using signicantly less force than the passive-on system. 6. Conclusion The efcacy of the MR damper in reducing the structural responses for a wide range of loading conditions has been

MR dampers for seismic protection Table 1. Experimental peak responses due to the El Centro earthquake. Clipped-optimal controller A Clipped-optimal controller B 0.157 0.264 0.335 0.157 0.139 0.081 874 673 653 0.133 668 0.087 0.148 0.192 0.087 0.085 0.060 542 579 521 0.071 580 Clipped-optimal controller C 0.151 0.213 0.280 0.151 0.123 0.087 957 859 748 0.133 754 0.089 0.136 0.184 0.089 0.077 0.059 657 759 545 0.071 630

Uncontrolled

Passive-off

Passive-on

High amplitude: responses due to the 120% El Centro earthquake xi 0.710 0.236 0.126 0.127 (cm) 1.068 0.362 0.312 0.229 1.249 0.436 0.420 0.318 di 0.710 0.236 0.126 0.127 (cm) 0.362 0.167 0.196 0.139 0.205 0.106 0.110 0.092 x ai 879 666 920 711 1110 714 808 642 (cm s2 ) 1500 804 897 786 xd (cm) 0.214 0.095 0.112 f (N) 258 1030 696 Low amplitude: responses due to the 80% El Centro earthquake xi 0.473 0.119 0.074 0.084 (cm) 0.712 0.197 0.196 0.157 0.833 0.240 0.267 0.213 di 0.473 0.119 0.074 0.084 (cm) 0.241 0.099 0.132 0.086 0.137 0.067 0.083 0.066 x ai 586 388 595 462 740 481 546 457 (cm s2 ) 1000 500 594 482 xd (cm) 0.112 0.049 0.063 f (N) 224 768 537

Figure 11. Controlled and uncontrolled structural responses due to 120% El Centro earthquake (controller A).

demonstrated in a series of experiments conducted at the Structural Dynamics and Control/Earthquake Engineering Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. In these experiments, the MR damper was used in conjunction with a clipped-optimal control algorithm to control the responses of a three-story test structure. The clippedoptimal control algorithm is implementable in that it uses readily available measurements of the structural responses, primarily absolute accelerations, to perform the control calculations.

The MR damper was shown to effectively reduce both the peak and rms responses due to a broad class of seismic excitations. Three different clipped-optimal control designs were considered, and each of the control designs achieved excellent results. In all cases, the semi-active controllers performed signicantly better than both of the passive systems considered in reducing the structural responses. Reductions in both acceleration and displacement responses were observed with the semi-actively controlled systems. Additionally, the semi-active control systems were able
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S J Dyke et al Table 2. Experimental rms responses due to the random excitations. Clipped-optimal controller A Clipped-optimal controller B 0.036 0.065 0.088 0.036 0.036 0.027 209 153 223 0.032 209 0.022 0.043 0.060 0.022 0.026 0.020 149 113 162 0.019 161 0.010 0.023 0.033 0.010 0.016 0.012 102 76.8 95.6 0.012 111 Clipped-optimal controller C 0.038 0.066 0.089 0.038 0.036 0.029 225 176 241 0.034 220 0.023 0.044 0.061 0.023 0.027 0.021 161 126 172 0.020 170 0.010 0.023 0.033 0.010 0.017 0.012 105 78.7 96.9 0.014 113

Uncontrolled

Passive-off

Passive-on

High amplitude: responses to the high amplitude random excitation xi 0.250 0.070 0.027 0.036 (cm) 0.382 0.112 0.070 0.066 0.467 0.139 0.103 0.091 di 0.250 0.070 0.027 0.036 (cm) 0.156 0.048 0.049 0.039 0.123 0.035 0.036 0.031 x ai 1020 274 226 228 576 184 178 159 (cm s2 ) 999 292 292 250 xd (cm) 0.066 0.020 0.033 f (N) 112 311 219 Medium amplitude: responses to the medium amplitude random excitation xi 0.164 0.036 0.018 0.022 (cm) 0.248 0.059 0.049 0.043 0.304 0.077 0.073 0.062 di 0.163 0.036 0.018 0.022 (cm) 0.101 0.028 0.035 0.028 0.080 0.022 0.026 0.022 x ai 663 168 162 154 374 112 134 115 (cm s1 ) 649 176 208 174 xd (cm) 0.031 0.010 0.018 f (N) 105 237 174 Low amplitude: responses to the low amplitude random excitation xi 0.075 0.013 0.009 0.009 (cm) 0.115 0.026 0.026 0.024 0.140 0.035 0.037 0.034 di 0.075 0.013 0.009 0.009 (cm) 0.047 0.016 0.020 0.017 0.037 0.012 0.014 0.012 x ai 306 88.3 114 102 173 68.3 88.1 78.3 (cm s1 ) 300 92.5 113 102 xd (cm) 0.017 0.007 0.010 f (N) 85.0 140 121

to achieve these performance gains while using smaller control forces than in the passive-on system. Moreover, the capabilities of the MR damper have been shown to mesh well with the requirements and constraints associated with the seismic response reduction in civil engineering structures. Note that algorithms that explicitly incorporate actuator dynamics and controlstructure interaction into the control design process may offer additional controlled performance gains [8]. Efforts are currently under way to investigate this possibility. Acknowledgment This research is supported in part by National Science Foundation grant Nos CMS 93-01584 and CMS 95-00301. In addition, the authors from Notre Dame and Washington University would like to express their appreciation to
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Lord Corporation of Cary, NC for providing the prototype magnetorheological damper. References
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