Time delay study for semi-active control of coupled adjacent structures using MR damper

The pounding phenomenon in adjacent structures happens in severing earthquakes that can cause great damages. Connecting neighboring structures with active and semi-active control devices is an effective method to avoid mutual colliding between neighboring buildings. One of the most important issues in control systems is applying online control force. There will be a time delay if the prose of producing control force does not perform on time. This paper proposed a time-delay compensation method in coupled structures control, with semi-active Magnetorheological (MR) damper. This method based on Newmark's integration is adopted to mitigate the time-delay effect. In this study, Lyapunov's direct approach is employed to compute demanded voltage for MR dampers. Using Lyapunov's direct algorithm guarantees the system stability to design a controller based on feedback. Because of the strong nonlinearity of MR dampers, the equation of motion of coupled structures becomes an involved equation, and it is impossible to solve it with the common time step methods. In present paper modified Newmark-Beta integration based on the instantaneous optimal control algorithm, used to solve the involved equation. In this method, the response of a coupled system estimated base on optimal control force. Two MDOF structures with different degrees of freedom are finally considered as a numeric example. The numerical results show, the Newmark compensation is an efficient method to decrease the negative effect of time delay in coupled systems; furthermore, instantaneous optimal control algorithm can estimate the response of structures suitable.