Enhancing the Practical Applicability of Smart Tuned Mass Dampers in High-Rise Civil Engineering Structures

The ability of bones to concentrate material where the body needs most of its strength and the ability of trees to spread roots in search of moisture rich locations are only a few amongst the many examples of nature’s way of building adaptive “structures”. Even though civil engineering structures often appear inefficient, static and cumbersome, a new era of structural design aims to alter the status quo by mimicking nature’s way. This suggested adaptation process in civil structures often takes the form of passive, active and semi- active control. Through direct comparison of these methods, semi-active control is shown to combine the benefits of both active and passive systems and can be arguably considered the next step in improving dynamic structural performance; however the applicability of this exciting and novel for the structural engineering field technology, is not all-embracing. In order to enhance the development of this promising technology and contribute on the creation of a new era of “smart & thinking” structures that encompass an unconventional form of performance based design, this study aimed to develop enabling technologies and tools that enhance the selling strengths of semi-active and smart control using tuned-mass dampers. The original contributions to knowledge in this work are divided in three aspects. Firstly, the investigation of the influence of control algorithms on smart tuned-mass damper equipped high-rise structures, for which practical limitations have been taken into account. Leading to conclusion on the conditions for which each algorithm exhibits superior performance over the other. Secondly, the development of a fail-safe novel semi-active hybrid device configuration that enables performance gains similar to the active mass damper at considerably lower actuation and power demands. Finally, the development of a simple and robust at all gains control algorithm based on the modification of one of the most widely used controller in the engineering industry, namely the proportional-integral-derivative controller.