Coupled building control using acceleration feedback

Connecting adjacent buildings for response reduction has been shown to be an effective method of structural control. Active coupled building control has been implemented in 2001 in the recently constructed Triton Square office complex in Tokyo, Japan. To date, active coupled building control using acceleration feedback has not been demonstrated. This paper reports on studies at the Structural Dynamics and Control/Earthquake Engineering Laboratory (SDC/EEL) at the University of Notre Dame to experimentally verify active coupled building control employing acceleration feedback for the seismic protection of structures. Herein, a pair of 2-dof flexible building models with a DC servo-motor/ball-screw control mechanism are employed. Feedback control is incorporated, using the acceleration, as well as relative displacement, measurements at the top stories of the building models. The proposed approach is shown to be effective for reduction of structural vibration due to seismic excitation.