Application of a high-pressure gas semi-active resettable damper to the benchmark smart base-isolated building

We discuss the application of a new class of low-cost and high-reliability semi-active devices for the response mitigation of structures subject to earthquakes. These devices, which manipulate stiffness rather than damping, are evaluated by the smart base-isolated benchmark building. The basic motivation, idealization as a stiffness resetting damper or device, development of control logic that ensures the semi-active property, and initial testing and validation results from recently developed prototypes are discussed. The principle idea allows the use of reliable and inexpensive hydraulic or pneumatic technologies, and leads to a decentralized and easy to implement architecture. The results from the benchmark simulations show performance competitive with well-known semi-active techniques. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.