Optimum design for the number placement and parameters of the control devices for tall buildings under earthquake excitation

To economically enhance the performance of active/passive control devices for the seismic response reduction of tall buildings, this paper investigates the optimal placement and optimal parameters of control devices using the linear quadratic performance index as an objective function. The optimal placement of control devices is determined in terms of the sequence of the calculated performance index increments and the number of control devices to be used. With the control devices at their optimal places, the seismic response of the building is finally computed using the suboptimal control gain derived using the minimum error principle. The results from the numerical examples show that the suggested approach is quite accurate and effective in determining the optimal placement and optimal parameters of control devices if the number of removed control devices is limited to a certain range.