Investigation of the optimal semi-active control strategies of adjacent buildings connected with magnetorheological dampers

This study investigates the efficacy of optimal semi-active dampers for achieving the best results in seismic response mitigation of adjacent buildings connected to each other by magnetorheological (MR) dampers under earthquakes. One of the challenges in the application of this study is to develop an effective optimal control strategy that can fully utilize the capabilities of the MR dampers. Hence, a SIMULINK block in MATLAB program was developed to compute the desired control forces at each floor level and to the obtain number of dampers. Linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controllers are used for obtaining the desired control forces, while the desired voltage is calculated based on clipped voltage law (CVL). The control objective is to minimize both the maximum displacement and acceleration responses of the structure. As a result, MR dampers can provide significant displacement response control that is possible with less voltage for the shorter building.