• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.85-105
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• 2006

Control of structural response due to seismic excitation in a manner of coupling adjacent buildings has been actively developed, and most attention focused on those buildings of similar height. However, with the rapid development of some modern cities, multi-story buildings constructed with an auxiliary low-rise podium structure to provide extra functions to the complex become a growing construction scheme. Being inspired by the positively examined coupling control approach for buildings with similar height, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive analytical study on control effectiveness of using friction dampers to link the two buildings with significant height difference to supplement the recent experimental investigation carried out by the writers. The analytical model of a coupled building system is first developed with passive friction dampers being modeled as Coulomb friction. To highlight potential advantage of coupling the main building and podium structure with control devices that provide a lower degree of coupling, the inherent demerit of rigid-coupled configuration is then evaluated. Extensive parametric studies are finally performed. The concerned parameters influencing the design of optimal friction force and control efficiency include variety of earthquake excitation and differences in floor mass, story number as well as number of dampers installed between the two buildings. In general, the feasibility of interaction control approach applied to the complex structure for vibration reduction due to seismic excitation is supported by positive results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.3_4
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• pp.557-572
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• 2004

Control systems are used to limit structural lateral deflections during large external loads such as winds and earthquakes. Most recently, the semi-active control approach has grown in popularity due to inexpensive control devices that consume little power. As a result, recently designed control systems have employed many semi-active control devices for the control of a structure. In the future, it is envisioned that structural control systems will be large-scale systems defined by high actuation and sensor densities. Decentralized control approaches have been used to control large-scale systems that are too complex for a traditional centralized approach, such as linear quadratic regulation (LQR). This paper describes the derivation of energy market-based control (EMBC), a decentralized approach that models the structural control system as a competitive marketplace. The interaction of free-market buyers and sellers result in an optimal allocation of limited control system resources such as control energy. The Kajima-Shizuoka Building and a 20-story benchmark structure are selected as illustrative examples to be used for comparison of the EMBC and centralized LQR approaches.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.973-992
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• 2016

A direct and relatively simple method for controlling nodal displacements and/or internal bar forces has been developed for prestressable structural assemblies including complex elements ("macro-elements", e.g., the pantographic element), involving Matrix Condensation, in which structural matrices being built up from matrices of elementary elements. The method is aimed at static shape control of geometrically sensitive structures. The paper discusses identification of the most effective bars for actuation, without incurring violation in bar forces, and also with objective of minimal number of actuators or minimum actuation. The advantages of the method is that the changes for both force and displacement regimes are within a single formulation. The method can also be used for adjustment of bar forces to either reduce instances of high forces or increase low forces (e.g., in a cable nearing slack).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.181-195
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• 2010

Coupled building control is a viable method to protect tall buildings from seismic excitation. In this study, the semi-active control of a building complex is investigated for mitigating seismic responses. The building complex is formed of one main building and one podium structure connected through Magneto-Rheological (MR) Dampers and Tuned Mass Damper. The conventional semi-active control techniques require a primary controller as a reference to determine the desired control force, and modulate the input voltage of the MR damper by comparing the desired control force. The fuzzy logic directly determines the input voltage of an MR damper from the response of the MR damper. The control performance of the proposed fuzzy control technique for the MR damper is evaluated for the control problem of a seismically-excited building complex. In this paper, a building complex that include a 14-story main building and an 8-story podium structure is applied as a numerical example to demonstrate the effectiveness of semi-active control with Magneto-Rheological dampers and its comparison with the passive control with the Tuned Mass Damper and two uncoupled buildings and hybrid semi-active control including the Tuned Mass Damper and Magneto-Rheological dampers while they are subject to the earthquake excitation. The numerical results show that semi-active control and hybrid semi-active control can significantly mitigate the seismic responses of both buildings, such as displacement and shear force responses, and fuzzy control technique can effectively mitigate the seismic response of the building complex.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.107-121
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• 2005

The suboptimal control rule is introduced in structural control implementation as an alternative over the optimal control because the optimal control may require large amount of processing time when applied to complex structural control problems. It is well known that any time delay in structural control implementation will cause un-synchronized application of the control forces, which not only reduce the effectiveness of an active control system, but also cause instability of the control system. The effect of time delay on the displacement and acceleration responses of building structures is studied when the suboptimal control rule is adopted. Two examples are given to show the effectiveness of the suboptimal control rule. It is shown through the examples that the present method is easy in implementation and high in efficiency and it can significantly reduce the time delay in structural control implementation without significant loss of performance.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2016

The reinforced-concrete multi-story shear-wall structure, which can free a building from beams and columns to allow the planning of a vast room, has increasingly been used in Japan as a high-rise reinforced-concrete structure. Since this structural system concentrates the seismic force onto multi-story shear walls inside, the bending deformation of the walls may cause excessive deformation on the upper floors during an earthquake. However, it is possible to control the bending deformation to within a certain level by setting high-strength and rigid beams (outriggers) at the top of the multi-story shear walls; these outriggers restrain the bending behavior of the walls. Moreover, it is possible to achieve high energy dissipation by placing vibration control devices on the outriggers and thus restrain the bending behavior. This paper outlines the earthquake response analysis of a high-rise residential tower to demonstrate the effectiveness of the outrigger frame incorporating vibration control devices.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.951-968
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• 2016

Long-span cross-strait bridges extending into deep-sea waters are exposed to complex marine environments. During the construction stage, the flexible freestanding bridge towers are more vulnerable to environmental loads imposed by wind and wave loads. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the dynamic responses of a 389-m-high freestanding bridge tower model in a test facility with a wind tunnel and a wave flume. An elastic bridge model with a geometric scale of 1:150 was designed based on Froude similarity and was tested under wind-only, wave-only and wind-wave combined conditions. The dynamic responses obtained from the tests indicate that large deformation under resonant sea states could be a structural challenge. The dominant role of the wind loads and the wave loads change according to the sea states. The joint wind and wave loads have complex effects on the dynamic responses of the structure, depending on the approaching direction angle and the fluid-induced vibration mechanisms of the waves and wind.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.61-70
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• 2019

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of the declination of the subtalar joint rotation axis and the structural features of the ankle joint complex such as rear-foot angle alignment and ligament laxity test between chronic ankle instability (CAI) patients and healthy control. Method: A total of 76 subjects and CAI group (N=38, age: $23.11{\pm}7.63yrs$, height: $165.67{\pm}9.54cm$, weight: $60.13{\pm}11.71kg$) and healthy control (N=38, age: $23.55{\pm}7.03yrs$, height: $167.92{\pm}9.22cm$, weight: $64.58{\pm}13.40kg$) participated in this study. Results: The declination of the subtalar joint rotation axis of the CAI group was statistically different from healthy control in both sagittal slope and transverse slope. The rear-foot angle of CAI group was different from a healthy control. Compared to healthy control, they had the structure of rear-foot varus that could have a high occurrence rate of ankle varus sprain. CAI group had loose ATFL and CFL compared to the healthy control. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the deviation of the subtalar joint rotation axis and the structural features of the ankle joint complex were different between the CAI group and the healthy control and this difference is a meaningful factor in the occurrence of lateral ankle sprains.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.3
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• pp.271-286
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• 2020

Passive control technologies are commonly used in several areas to suppress structural vibrations by the addition of supplementary damping, and some modal damping may be heavy beyond critical damping even for regular structures with energy dissipation devices. The design of passive control structures is typically based on (complex) mode superposition approaches. However, the conventional mode superposition approach is predominantly applied to cases of under-critical damping. Moreover, when any modal damping ratio is equal or close to 1.0, the system becomes defective, i.e., a complete set of eigenvectors cannot be obtained such that some well-known algorithms for the quadratic eigenvalue problem are invalid. In this paper, a generalized complex mode superposition method that is suitable for under-critical, critical and over-critical damping is proposed and expressed in a unified form for structural displacement, velocity and acceleration responses. In the new method, the conventional algorithm for the eigenvalue problem is still valid, even though the system becomes defective due to critical modal damping. Based on the modal truncation error analysis, modal corrected methods for displacement and acceleration responses are developed to approximately consider the contribution of the truncated higher modes. Finally, the implementation of the proposed methods is presented through two numerical examples, and the effectiveness is investigated. The results also show that over-critically damped modes have a significant impact on structural responses. This study is a development of the original complex mode superposition method and can be applied well to dynamic analyses of non-classically damped systems.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2008

The control of underactuated mechanical system is very complex for the loss of its control inputs. The model of underactuated mechanical systems in a potential field is built with Lagrangian method and its structural properties are analyzed in detail. A genetic algorithm (GA)based stable control approach is proposed for the class of under actuated mechanical systems. The Lyapunov stability theory and system properties are utilized to guarantee the system stability to its equilibrium. The real-valued GA is used to adjust the controller parameters to improve the system performance. This approach is applied to the underactuated double-pendulum-type overhead crane and the simulation results illustrate the complex system dynamics and the validity of the proposed control algorithm.