Nonlinear Identification and Control of a Building Structure with a Magnetorheological Damper

This paper proposes an approach to identification of a nonlinear model of a building equipped with a magnetorheological (MR) damper. The nonlinear model is identified via a multiple model approach based on an autoregressive exogenous (ARX) modeling framework. The so called Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy model is used to accomplish this process. Furthermore, a control strategy is developed to compensate for the nonlinearity in the structure/damper system so as to enhance the response of the system to earthquake type inputs. In particular it is shown that the proposed control strategy offers a reasonably effective approach to semi-active control of structures. The research team intends to verify these results in comparative studies using benchmark building structures in near future.