Abstract:
This paper presents vibration control of a five-storey model with semi-active stiffness damper
subjected to earthquake loads. Semi-active stiffness damper consists of a special type of hydraulic
damper connected to the bracing frame and installed in a selected storey unit. Various control laws
are applied to demonstrate the system performance. They are resetting control, switching control and
linear quadratic regulator (LQR). Three cases of resetting control are developed by selecting control
parameters to explore control performance. Moreover, the damper effective stiffness is varied to
determine the optimum performance. The results show that semi-active stiffness damper effectively
controls the vibration of a five storey model. By selecting an appropriate damper stiffness value, each
control law can perform well. Resetting control can achieve maximum displacement reductions of up
to 83%, while it is 73% for switching control and 74% for LQR.
