Optimal control of seismically-excited building structures

An integrated dynamic model for linear building structures is developed in this paper by including the effect of actuator dynamics and the impact of earthquake excitations. A quadratic performance index which includes a penalty on the acceleration of the structure is appropriately constructed. A linear-quadratic optimization problem is then formulated; the solution of this problem alleviates the adverse effects of both system time-delay due to actuator response and base acceleration due to seismic activities.The case of nonlinear building structures, which includes the nonlinear stiffness and damping effects, is also considered. Three dynamic optimization problems are subsequently constructed using three different performance criteria. Simulations of the performance of the system are presented to demonstrate the advantages of the derived optimal control schemes.