Semiactive connected control method for adjacent multidegree-of-freedom buildings

The connected control method (CCM) has been shown previously to be a viable means to protect adjacent flexible structures. The CCM works by using an auxiliary structure to provide a reaction force for control. The CCM can be applied to a variety of structural systems including civil, mechanical, or aerospace structures, and can incorporate various types of control strategies including passive, active, or semiactive control. This paper focuses on the application of the CCM to seismically excited adjacent buildings employing semiactive control and extends the previous research in semiactive coupled building control to examine the effects of relative building height and coupling link location on the semiactive performance. The optimal semiactive coupled building configuration is shown to follow two guidelines: (1) The dominant frequencies of the two coupled buildings do not coincide and (2) the coupling link is not placed at the node of a dominant vibratory mode. Additionally, it is shown that semiactive control is able to achieve performance similar to the optimal passive control at a fraction of the required control device force.