Performance comparison on control system application in civil engineering structures

This paper presents the results of a systematic comparison of the performance of different control systems for civil engineering structures. The capabilities of ideal passive, active, and semi-active control systems are compared in this study. The passive system consists of an ideal viscous damper, the ideal active system is an ideal force actuator, and the ideal semi-active device applies the commanded force to the structure when it is dissipative. To evaluate and compare the controllers, the structural responses of buildings with different numbers of stories are examined. The ground excitation is modeled as a band-limited white noise, and rms values of the structural responses and control forces are determined.