Statistical performance analysis of seismic-excited structures with active interaction control

This paper presents a statistical performance analysis of a semi-active structural control system for suppressing the vibration response of building structures during strong seismic events. The proposed semi-active mass damper device consists of a high-frequency mass damper with large stiffness, and an actively controlled interaction element that connects the mass damper to the structure. Through actively modulating the operating states of the interaction elements according to pre-specified control logic, vibrational energy in the structure is dissipated in the mass damper device and the vibration of the structure is thus suppressed. The control logic, categorized under active interaction control, is defined directly in physical space by minimizing the inter-storey drift of the structure to the maximum extent. This semi-active structural control approach has been shown to be effective in reducing the vibration response of building structures due to specific earthquake ground motions. To further evaluate the control performance, a Monte Carlo simulation of the seismic response of a three-storey steel-framed building model equipped with the proposed semi-active mass damper device is performed based on a large ensemble of artificially generated earthquake ground motions. A procedure for generating codecompatible artificial earthquake accelerograms is also briefly described. The results obtained clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed semi-active mass damper device in controlling vibrations of building structures during large earthquakes. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.