Adaptive Feedforward Control of Structures Subjected to Seismic Excitation

An adaptive feedforward control approach is proposed for the response reduction of structures excited by seismic ground motions. Although adaptive control has been used in many areas of engineering, its applications to control of civil engineering structures remains unexplored. A preliminary experimental work carried out to test the feasibility and performance of the proposed methodology is presented here. A single-input, single-output (SISO) controller was used to attenuate the response of a three degree-of-freedom shear type building model. The ground motion was an artificially generated input. The results show good response reduction with a pack attenuation of up to 6.3 dB.