• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.35-53
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• 2012

Mechanical dampers have been proved to be one of the most effective countermeasures for vibration mitigation of stay cables in various cable-stayed bridges over the world. However, for long stay cables, as the installation height of the damper is restricted due to the aesthetic concern, using passive dampers alone may not satisfy the control requirement of the stay cables. In this connection, semi-active MR dampers have been proposed for the vibration mitigation of long stay cables. Although various studies have been carried out on the implementation of MR dampers on stay cables, the optimal damping performance of the cable-MR damper system has yet to be evaluated. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of MR damper as a semi-active control device for the vibration mitigation of stay cable. The mathematical model of the MR damper will first be established through a performance test. Then, an efficient semi-active control strategy will be derived, where the damping of MR damper will be tuned according to the dynamic characteristics of stay cable, in order to achieve optimal damping of cable-damper system. Simulation study will be carried out to verify the proposed semi-active control algorithm for suppressing the cable vibrations induced by different loading patterns using optimally tuned MR damper. Finally, the effectiveness of MR damper in mitigating multi modes of cable vibration will be examined theoretically.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.419-434
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• 2014

In this paper, the electromagnetic damper (EMD), which is composed of a permanent-magnet rotary DC motor, a ball screw and a nut, is considered to be analyzed as a semi-active damper. The main objective pursued in the paper is to study the two degrees of freedom (DOF) model of the semi-active electromagnetic suspension system (SAEMSS) performance and energy regeneration controlled by on-off and continuous damping control strategies. The nonlinear equations of the SAEMSS must therefore be extracted. The effects of the EMD characteristics on ride comfort, handling performance and road holding for the passive electromagnetic suspension system (PEMSS) are first analyzed and damping control strategies effects on the SAEMSS performance and energy regeneration are investigated next. The results obtained from the simulation show that the SAEMSS provides better performance and more energy regeneration than the PEMSS. Moreover, the results reveal that the on-off hybrid control strategy leads to better performance in comparison with the continuous skyhook control strategy, however, the energy regeneration of the continuous skyhook control strategy is more than that of the on-off hybrid control strategy (except for on-off skyhook control strategy).

• Computational Structural Engineering : An International Journal
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2003

A recently developed semi-active control system employing magneto-rheological (MR) fluid dampers is applied to vibration control of a wind excited tall building. The semi-active control system with MR fluid dampers appears to have the reliability of passive control devices and the adaptability of fully active control systems. The system requires only small power source, which is critical during severe events, when the main power source may fail. Numerical simulation studies are performed to demonstrate the efficiency of the MR dampers on the third ASCE benchmark problem. Multiple MR dampers are assumed to be installed in the 76-story building. Genetic algorithm is applied to determine the optimal locations and capacities of the MR dampers. Clipped optimal controller is designed to control the MR dampers based on the acceleration feedback. To verify the robustness with respect to the variation of the external wind force, several cases with different wind forces are considered in the numerical simulation. Simulation results show that the semi-actively controlled MR dampers can effectively reduce both the peak and RMS responses the tall building under various wind force conditions. The control performance of the MR dampers for wind is found to be fairly similar to the performance of an active tuned mass damper.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.373-387
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• 2018

Semi-active isolation systems based on leverage-type stiffness control strategies have been widely studied. The main concept behind this type of system is to adjust the stiffness in the isolator to match the fundamental period of the isolated system by using a simple leverage mechanism. Although this system achieves high performance under far-field earthquakes, it is unsuitable for near-fault strong ground motion. To overcome this problem, this study considers the potential energy effect in the control law of the semi-active isolation system. The minimal energy weighting (MEW) between the potential energy and kinetic energy was first optimized through a series of numerical simulations. Two MEW algorithms, namely generic and near-fault MEW control, were then developed to efficiently reduce the structural displacement responses. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, a two-degree-of-freedom structure was employed as a benchmark. Numerical results indicate that the dynamic response of the structure can be effectively dampened by the proposed MEW control under both far-field and near-fault earthquakes, whereas the structural responses resulting from conventional control methods may be greater than those for the purely passive control method. Moreover, according to experimental verifications, both the generic and near-fault MEW control modes yielded promising results under impulse-like earthquakes. The practicability of the proposed control algorithm was verified.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.7 no.2 s.24
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• pp.53-61
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• 2007

A conventional passive TMD is only effective when it is tuned properly. In many practical applications, inevitable off-tuning of a TMD occurs because the mass in a building floor could change by moving furnishings, people gathering, etc. When TMDs are offtuned, TMDs their effectiveness is sharply reduced. Moreover, the off-tuned TMs can excessively amplify the vibration levels of the primary structures. This paper discusses the application of a new class of MR damper, for the reduction of floor vibrations duo to machine and human movements. The STMD introduced uses a MR damper called to semi-active damper to achieve reduction in the floor vibration. Here, the STMD and the groundhook algorithm are applied to a single degree of freedom system representative or building floors. The performance or the STMD is compared to that or the equivalent passive TMD. In addition, the effects of off-tuning due to variations in the mass of the floor system. Comparison of the results demonstrates the efficiency and robustness of STMD with respect to equivalent TMD.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.33-39
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• 2002

Commercial vehicles are mostly subjected to relatively rougher ground environment than passenger vehicles. Many driver's seats of commercial vehicles have suspension system with spring and dampers. Then, impact or vibrative forces transmitted from the vehicle to the driver can be attenuated. This study deals with a ride evaluation method using sky-hook control algorithm for the suspension dampers. Vibration amplitude transmissibilities were compared between passive dampers and semi-active dampers with sky-hook control method.

• Architectural research
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.99-108
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• 2012

An innovative multi-story Semi-Active Tuned Mass Damper (SATMD) building system is proposed to control seismic response of existing structures. The application of adding new stories as large tuned mass and semi-active (SA) resettable actuators as central features of the control scheme is derived. For the effective control of the structures, the optimal tuning parameters are considered for the large mass ratio, for which a previously proposed equation is used and the practical optimal stiffness is allocated to the actuator stiffness and rubber bearing stiffness. A two-degree-of freedom (2-DOF) model is adopted to verify the principal efficiency of the suggested structural control concept. The simulations for this study utilizes the three ground motions, from SAC project, having probability of exceedance of 50% in 50 years, 10% in 50 years, and 2% in 50 years for the Los Angeles region. 12-story moment resisting frames, which are modified as '12+2' and '12+4' story structures, are investigated to assess the viability and effectiveness of the system that aims to reduce the response of the buildings to earthquakes. The control ability of the SATMD scheme is compared to that of an uncontrolled and an ideal Passive Tuned Mass Damper (PTMD) building system. From the performance results of suggested '12+2' and '12+4' story retrofitting case studies, SATMD systems shows significant promise for application of structural control where extra stories might be added.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1005-1028
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• 2016

Two novel semi-active control methods for a seismically excited nonlinear benchmark building equipped with magnetorheological dampers are presented and evaluated in this paper. While a primary controller is designed to estimate the optimal control force of a magnetorheological (MR) damper, the required voltage input for the damper to produce such desired control force is achieved using two different methods. The first technique uses an optimal compact Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy inverse model of MR damper to predict the required voltage to actuate the MR dampers (TSKFInv). The other voltage regulator introduced here works based on the maximum and minimum capacities of MR damper at each time-step (MaxMin). Both semi-active algorithms developed here, use acceleration feedback only. The results demonstrate that both TSKFInv and MaxMin algorithms are quite effective in seismic response reduction for wide range of motions from moderate to severe seismic events, compared with the passive systems and performs better than original and Modified clipped optimal controller systems, known as COC and MCOC.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

The NCF control algorithm for an active suspension system was proposed and investigated. The NCF algorithm using spring dynamic variation force and suspension relative velocity was applied to the 1/4 vehicle model and numerical analysis was performed. Vehicle's performances such as vehicle displacement, vehicle acceleration, suspension deflection, tire deflection and absorbed power were calculated and compared with those of the passive, semi-active and LQR active suspension system that use full state feedback. Numerical results show that the proposed NCF active suspension system has superior performance compared with the passive and semi-active suspension system and has very similar performance compared with the LQR active suspension system. So the proposed NCF algorithm is considered as a highly practical algorithm because it requires only one displacement sensor in a 1/4 vehicle model.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2009

This study is about roll characteristics evaluation to show the advantage of using MR(magneto-rheological) dampers for steering of a SUV(sports utility vehicle). Roll characteristics is very important to observe the roll-propensity of the SUV. ADAMS/Car program was used to simulate the basic steering motion, using 63 D.O.F. vehicle model. Sky-Hook and Ground-Hook control algorithms were used as a semi-active suspension system controller. The roll characteristics from the steering motion were compared between the simulation results from the semi-active suspension system and the passive suspension system.