CHAPTER 5 New Trends in Earthquake Engineering.

Passive and Active Control

Structural control for civil engineering appeared as a necessity imposed by special, longer, or taller constructions spread allover the world. The passive approach was adopted already in many cases. For active control there are experiments showing good results. Hybrid solutions are under investigations by many researchers. However, the field is very large and civil engineer designers do not have a clear image of this scope. This chapter is showing the aim of structural control. It follows a short image of passive control and it is then stressing on active control. Theoretical aspects, devices used, and practical applications of active control are presented. A critical comparison between the two types of structural control is intended to introduce the reader into the complexity of the problems involved by the control implementations. Computational means helping the study of the field are also reviewed.

5.1 INTRODUCTION The Civil Engineering field is now undergoing important changes in philosophy and practice due to dramatic evolution recorded in other branches of human activity like: electronics, automatics, computer science, robotics, new materials and technologies, etc. At the same time, it should be mentioned major differences between Civil Engineering and other engineering fields. It is specific for constructions to use materials with high costs, on large surfaces and volumes, and to need huge energy during construction, especially in the case of long span bridges and very tall buildings. Life of many people and vital social activities depend on the well functioning of civil structures during and after important earth shakings. There are also civil engineering structures with inestimable material and spiritual values, as historical buildings.
NATURAL ACTIONS Typhoons PROTECTION Passive Control Active Control Tall Buildings STRUCTURES

600 400

KOBE NS 1995

acceleration (gal)

200 0 -200 -400 -600 -800 0 10 20

818 gal
30 40 50 60

time (s)

Earthquakes

Long Span Bridges

Figure 5.1 Relation between actions, structures, and control Protection of some structures as those reminded above is a very important problem for human communities. A solution for avoiding the harming effects of strong earthquakes or strong winds is the structural control. It is using specific means and procedures that lead to reduction in intensities for actions and change the way they act on civil engineering structures. It changes also the structural response to the actions and lowers the induced energy. In Figure 5.1, the existing relation between natural actions, structural control, and built constructions is shown. This figure highlights the reduction in the input due to control means. 5.2 SEISMIC RESPONSE CONTROL In order to determine the ways to control the structures acted by seismic forces, the equation of energy balance may be written
E Ek Es Eh Ed

(5.1)

where: E is the energy induced by seismic shaking; Ek is the kinetic energy; Es is the elastic strain energy; Eh is the energy dissipated by the structural system due to inelastic behavior or other causes; Ed is the energy dissipated by supplemental damping devices.

From Equation (5.1) it can be deduced that the control means play the role of taking a part of the energy induced into the structure. However, it should be observed that there is a dependency between the structural characteristics, e.g. the natural period of vibration, and the amount of induced seismic energy. Therefore, the seismic behavior of civil engineering structures is very complex in its nature and its complexity is amplified through the presence of control means, which are actually modifying the structural characteristics. There are many ways to accomplish a seismic response control. According to Professor Kobori, these ways are: 1. Cut off the energy transmission of the earthquake ground motion to a structure. 2. Isolate the natural period of the structure from the predominant frequency domain of the ground motion. 3. Achieve the non-stationary and non-resonant state by providing nonlinear characteristics. 4. Apply control force such as mass damper/driver or tendon. 5. Utilize the energy absorption mechanism. If the first method is achievable, then the second and the fifth method are not needed. However, the first method is difficult to achieve, therefore it is recommended that at least two of the above methods to be combined. Table 5.1 Classification of structural protective systems
Seismic Isolation Elastomeric bearings Lead rubber bearings Elastomeric bearings with energy dissipating devices Sliding friction pendulum Flat sliding bearings with restoring force devices Lubricated sliding bearings with energy dissipating devices Passive Energy Dissipation Metallic dampers Friction dampers Viscoelastic dampers Viscous dampers Tuned mass dampers Tuned liquid dampers Active Control Active bracing systems Active mass dampers Active variable stiffness or damping systems Pulse systems Electro-rheological active dampers Aerodynamic appendages

Table 5.1 shows a classification of protective systems. It provides a part of the many control devices existing now. Depending on the location of the control devices other classification can be stated: a) protective devices located into the structure b) protective devices located at the base of the structure c) combination of a) and b). Each of the above can be either passive or active. The passive control is based on the nature of the materials they include (rubber, lead, steel, viscous materials) and especially on supplementary adding in damping and ductility. Some of passive devices rely on the use of friction forces. The active control is using external energy for reducing, even minimizing the seismic response. The controlled structure becomes active, with different characteristics and different behavior compared to the initial non-controlled one, even in case of strong actions.

5.3 PASSIVE CONTROL. DEVICES AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Passive controlled structures are widely spread all over the world. Table 4.3, at the end of this chapter presents a list of isolated structures and isolation devices used in different countries. Also at the end of the chapter there is the Table 4.4 showing some passive devices used in Japan for seismic isolation of bridges. These devices are the objects of specifications in a design guide named Menshin. Other developed countries try to setup similar specifications.
Holes for bolts Top steel plate

Rubber

Steel plates

Bottom steel plate

Figure 5.2 Elastomeric bearing A rubber bearing with top and bottom steel plates is presented in Figure 5.2. Other type is that from Figure 5.3. It contains steel plates integrated in rubber. These plates have the role to limit lateral displacements. The system includes a lead kernel, which can assure an increased ductility, but it can determine permanent displacements after strong earthquakes. However, the lead core can be replaced when needed.
Dowel holes Lead plug

Rubber Steel plates

End steel plates

Figure 5.3 Lead-rubber bearing The passive means devices range is considerable large. One important type, named Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) is based on moving masses. Figure 5.8 shows an Active Mass Damper. If the active part (the actuator which generates the force ua) is removed, a TMD is obtained. Such systems determine changes in structural dynamic characteristics. Especially the frequency response function is lowered if the dynamic properties of the TMD are close to that of the main structure and if the mass of the TMD is enough large (between 1% to 4% from the mass of the main system).

In a similar manner is acting a TLD, Tuned Liquid Damper. One TLD is shown at the fourth level of the structure from Figure 5.9. The mass value, the natural period of vibration, and the liquid viscosity are the main elements that make the system to be efficient.

Bearing material

Articulated slider Seal

Cylinder

Supporting column

Spherical surface
Figure 5.4 Friction Pendulum System Bearing

Figure 5.4 presents other passive control system based on a sliding bearing moving on a spherical surface. An important advantage of this device type is that it can assure a return to the initial position under the structures weight. 5.4 ACTIVE CONTROL. THEORETICAL ASPECTS Every construction suffers changes during its life. At the same time, the environment where the structure is placed is changing, too. Therefore one could compare existing constructions to living beings. However, the most common way a civil engineering structure overcomes external loads is to resist to them. The living beings not only resist but also adapt to the environmental aggressiveness, responding in a different manner to different actions or intensities. Adapting to external loads and to structural changes is a basic idea in active structural control. In 1972, Prof. James T.P. Yao, through his paper Concept of Structural Control, is defining the start for this new branch in structural synthesis. Figure 5.5 shows a feedback system as J.P.Yao viewed it. The author describes a structural controlled structure as an error-activated structural system the behavior which varies automatically in accordance with unpredictable variations in the loading as well as environmental conditions and thereby produces desirable responses under all possible loading conditions. From the point of view of theoretical studies and application methodologies, there are two main approaches in structural control: i. LQG (Linear Quadratic Gain) control, based on time domain ii. H and -Synthesis control, based on frequency domain. These two ways are very developed in many sub-methods and versions. Meanwhile, additional tools are added to the main methods: fuzzy sets analysis and neuronal networks.

Command or Reference Input, r + -

Error or Actuating signal, e

Forward Path Elements - error sensing device - compensating network - amplifier - servo-motor

Control variable, c

Feedback Path Elements

Figure 5.5 Closed-Loop Control System From the first category of control, LQG, very popular are: pole assignment, optimal control, instantaneous optimal control, modal control, critical modal control, and sliding modes control method. Majority of these methods is based on rewriting the structural dynamics classical and familiar system of equations
M s + C s z + K s z = f z

(5.2)

in the form of state equation

x = Ax + Bf y = Cx + Df

(5.3)

In the Equation (5.2), Ms, Cs, and Ks are the mass, damping, and stiffness matrices of the structure; z is the vector of the generalized displacement vector, and f is the vector of the external forces.

+ +

x C A

+ +

D
Figure 5.6 System described by Equation (5.3) In the Equation (5.3), A is the system matrix, B is the load location matrix, C is the measurement matrix, and D is a matrix showing the influence of the input, f, to the output, y. Equation (5.3) is described by Figure 5.6. If all the states, x, are known (measured), a state feedback, u, can be introduced, and the control problem is reduced to finding a gain matrix, K, so that:

x = Ax + B(f - u) u = Kx
and a graphical representation of the Equation (5.4) is given by Figure 5.7.

(5.4)

f + u -

+ +

A K
Figure 5.7 System described by Equation (5.4) As an example of control method, the optimal control method is presented next. For this case, the objective is to determine the gain matrix, K, under the condition that a quadratic index, J, defined by Equation (5.5) should be minimized.

tf 0

x Qx u Ru dt

(5.5)

In the Equation (5.5), Q and R are weighting matrices representing the importance given to reducing the structural response and the importance given to use less external energy for obtaining the control, respectively. This method leads to a Riccati matrical equation

PA

1 PBR 1B P A P 2Q 2

(5.6)

with the matrix P being unknown. After solving, the gain matrix is obtained from the next equation:

1 1 R BP 2

(5.7)

Replacing the control force vector, u, into Equation (5.4) one could observe that the feedback system is transforming the original uncontrolled system by changing the system matrix A, such that it will respond to the requirements of Equation (5.5).

ua c2 k2 c1 k1
m2

x x 2 x 2 2

m1

x x1 x1 1
g x

Figure 5.8 Active Tuned Mass Damper 5.5 ACTIVE CONTROL. DEVICES In structural active control various devices are used. Between them, Active Tuned Mass Dampers (ATMDs) are widely used and studied. A system with one degree of freedom equipped with an ATMD is shown in Figure 5.8. It can be seen from this figure that an ATMD is formed from an additional mobile mass attached to the system

through an actuator, generating the force ua. The active forces values are generated from the on-line measurements and employing control algorithms. In Figure 5.8 additional springs and dampers, tuned to dynamic characteristics of the structure, link the main system and the secondary one. This control system is also called Hybrid Mass Damper (HMD) because it can be seen as a combination from a pure active system Active Mass Damper (AMD), and the elements of a passive Tuned Mass Damper (TMD).

Active Tuned Mass Damper, ATMD

Tuned Liquid Damper, TLD

Active Braces System, ABS

Active Variable Stiffness, AVS

Active Tendon System, ATS

Active/passive base isolation systems

Figure 5.9 Use of some structural control systems In order to have a better look about passive and active control systems, Figure 5.9 shows some of them located on a building. The figure is only a representation, not a true solution, because employing many device types in the same building is not common. Usually, real applications involve only one type of control system. However, for hybrid applications, the base isolation is utilized together with some active devices. At the top of the building from Figure 5.9 one can observe an ATMD device and one floor lower, a Tuned Liquid Damper (TLD). At the third floor, there is an Active Brace System (ABS) which is principally made from a piston and a servovalve acting on the diagonal of that floor. The system from the second floor of the building from Figure 5.9 is named Active Variable Stiffness (AVS) and was introduced by Professor Takuji Kobori and

Kajima Corporation of Japan. It is made from two very stiff inclined beams moved to the left or to the right by the upper active piston and therefore minimizing the relative floor displacement and changing the floor stiffness. The first floor from the building in Figure 5.9 is equipped with an Active Tendon System (ATS). This system is based on active diagonals consisting in tendons having the role to provide the limitation of relative floor displacements. At the base of the building from Figure 5.9 passive isolators are installed. In order to prevent too long displacements of the buildings base, an actuator and, eventually, a spring and a damper are employed. For the base actuators, the problem of generating huge forces could be prohibitive. Table 5.2 Buildings with structural active control in Japan
Active Control System's Name AMD (Active Mass Driver) AVS (Active Variable System) AMD AMD HMD (Tuned Active Damper) HMD (Hybrid Mass Damper) HMD (DUOX) HMD HMD HMD HMD (TRIGON) HMD AMD (AVICS-1) HMD HMD HMD (DUOX) HMD HMD Developer Kajima Kajima Takenaka Takenaka MHI, Yasui A&E Shimizu Kajima MHI Nikken, Prof. Fujita Takenaka Kajima, IHI MHI, Nihon Sekkei Obayashi MHI, Nikken Sekkei Shimizu Kajima, KRC MHI, Nikken Sekkei Fujita, Prof. Fujita Building's Name Kyobashi Seiwa Bldg. KaTRI No.21 BLDG Sendagaya INTS Hankyu Chayamachi Bldg. Kansai Airport Control Tower ORC200 Symbol Tower Ando Nishikicho Bldg Landmark Tower Long Term Credit Bank Bldg. KS Project Shinjuku Park Tower ACT Tower Riverside Sumida Osaka WTC Bldg. Hotel Ocean 45 Dowa Kasai Phoenix Tower Rinku Gate Tower Hirobe Miyake Bldg. Year 1989 1990 1992 1992 1992 1992 1993 1993 1993 1993 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1995 1995 1995

5.6 ACTIVE CONTROL. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Most of the practical active control implementations exist in Japan. Table 5.2 shows, in chronological order, the Japanese buildings equipped with active devices, the name of the company that developed them and the devices types. As a practical example, in Figure 5.10 the ATMD used in Landmark Tower Yokohama, the tallest Japanese building (296 m), can be seen. Two identical devices with that from Figure 5.10 are installed on top of the building, at floor 70. The moving mass of such device is 170 tones out from 250 tones of the ensemble (it should be noted that the whole building mass is evaluated at 223,000 tones). Maximum displacement of the mass is of 1.70 m. The device has the in-plane dimensions 4.90 4.90 m and a height of 9 m. It is expected an efficiency of 60-70% in accelerations decrease during strong typhoons.

Figure 5.10 Hybrid Mass Damper For protection against winds of the towers during construction some Japanese bridges had been equipped with active/passive systems: Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge (the longest worlds suspension bridge, with 1990 m central span) and Tsurumi Tsubasa Bridge (the longest worlds one plane cable stayed bridge, with 510 m central span).

Figure 5.11 Active Variable Damper An active system for bridges is under intensive studies at the Public Work Research Institute Tsukuba, Japan. This device, shown in Figure 5.11 is to be placed between the infrastructure and the superstructure of highway bridges for limiting the displacements that could harm the functionality of those bridges during strong earthquakes. 5.7 COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE TWO CONTROL CATEGORIES There is no doubt that the active control systems can provide better results when compared to the passive control. Following a step by step analysis, the displacements at the top of a structure equipped with a TMD compared to them for the case of an ATMD are plotted in Figure 5.12. A comparison in frequency domain for acceleration for the same two cases may be seen in Figure 5.13.

0.2 0.15 0.1

Top Displacement, El-Centro NS

Displacement (m)

0.05 0

-0.05 -0.1 -0.15 -0.2 0 5 10 15 Time (s) Passive Control Active Control 20 25 30

Figure 5.12 Time-history displacement response Next follows the main reasons for and against choosing passive or active control for civil engineering structures: passive control means are cheaper and easier to maintain. However in some cases the number of needed devices can become extremely high. For example, in each building of The World Trade Center in New York, USA, 10,000 viscoelastic dampers had been installed. passive devices condition is or might be damaged by time, environment and load intensity. passive devices characteristics cannot be easily adjusted, as is the case with active devices. for the time being, active means have poor reliability: they still present malfunctions and, on the other hand, it is hard to obtain for them high power supply capable to properly work during strong earthquakes. energy consumption for active systems, even in stand-by state, makes their maintenance extremely expensive. for both passive and, especially, active control systems, response time lag leads to difficulties in strategy control analysis. when structural control, either passive or active, is to be applied, a very precise knowledge of the structure is needed. Therefore intensive and expensive studies have to be done to identify it. in order to perform an efficient active control, monitoring of the structural response might lead to highly costing equipment (sensors, computers, etc.). there is a danger of spillover phenomena (amplification of the response) in structural active control as a result of poor structural identification, long time lag, malfunctions in equipment, or due to extremely high external actions. To the above aspects it should be added another one: the effectiveness of passive control is still difficult to prove. An example is the stiffness to be chosen for the case of isolators used as passive devices. If the isolators are too soft they might lead to very large displacements. If they are too stiff, they will have reduced effects and will transmit more energy.

10 8
Response (m/s2)

FRF of acceleration

Passive Control Active Control

6 4 2 0 0

4 6 Frequency (Hz)

10

Figure 5.13 Acceleration frequency response Other problem, linked with the first one, is that if the passive devices can come back to the initial position, after an earthquake. If some deformations are permanent, then the system could become unmanageable. However, the most worrying aspect is that of the contradictory responses shown by isolators and passive controlled structures: to some earthquakes they perform very well but in some other cases their effects are null or even amplifications of the responses might occur. This can be explained by the narrow frequency limits of the effectiveness for the passive control. Therefore, only the frequency response of the isolators is shown to be very good. The non-stationary characteristics of the earthquakes make, in many cases, the isolators behavior to be unexpected. 5.8 SPECIFIC COMPUTER PROGRAMS Structural computational and seismic analysis methods for structures employing control means cannot be the same as for common civil engineering constructions. It is almost obvious that a simple spectral analysis, as is specified by majority of Earthquake Engineering national codes, is not satisfactory. For passive controlled structures especially, and also for many active controlled structures, it is necessary to adopt models that accept non-linearities for materials and structures, large displacements, P- effect, soil-structure interaction, different foundation condition, and asynchronous excitations at construction base. Even if the step-by-step analysis remains a main analysis procedure, controlled structures must be analyzed using other approaches as linear or non-linear stochastic analysis, or frequency domain analysis. It is not possible to state that an analysis method is superior to other analysis method. They just reveal different aspects of the control system and complete the image of the structural response. In order to perform analysis for passive controlled structures, majority of finite element computer programs (ANSYS, ADINA, NASTRAN, ABAQUS, I-DEAS, ALGOR, etc.) can be used. Other category of programs is specialized in dealing with non-linearities for civil engineering structures. For example, IDARC2D, offers a step-by-step analysis that manipulates the degrading of structural elements, showing the mechanisms that affects the structural behavior. Also it provides a push-over analysis. Including

hysteretic damping devices, viscoelastic elements, and friction devices is possible. Contribution from nonstructural elements can be taken into consideration. Similar capabilities are offered by other available computer programs: DRAIN, SARCF, ANSR, SAP2000, ETABS. Commercial programs are available for solving active control problems. One of them, MATLAB, is built around a kernel that offers an integrated environment for various applications in mathematics, statistics, matrix computation, graphical simulations, signal processing, neuronal network, nonlinear programming, control systems, etc. MATLAB needs a relatively hard training to be learned and it is limited to small structural control applications. However, to obtain very efficient computation for active structural control, one should think to use specialized computer programs that would intensively employ all computer resources and to adapt to civil engineering problems. Though large construction companies surely possess such kind of computer programs, commercial software is not yet available. 5.9 CONCLUSIONS Studying the structural active/passive control responses of civil engineering structures, one can see that there is an obvious superiority of the active control compared to passive control. Improvement of the structural response is observed in all analysis types: time domain, frequency domain, stochastic or spectral. However, active control is, for the time being, very expensive and unreliable. In this case there are unsolved aspects linked to time delays and instability due to control devices. Structural system identification is still a complicated task and therefore the structural control, based on it, is negatively influenced. For the moment, practical application of active control looks more likely to generate more problems than the problems it solves. This does not mean that the future will reject this idea. It is especially a technological matter that slows the advances in this field. The need of longer/taller and safer bridges/buildings will surely accelerate the theoretical and practical works of structural active control. As a small example, one could remember what was happening only 30 years ago compared with nowadays. At that time, a computer performing similar tasks that are performed today by a workstation was maybe thousands times more expensive. The cost for maintenance (mainly because of the need for special rooms highly conditioned and because of their poor reliability) was huge. Todays workstations have prices close to the first personal computers and sooner will be affordable even for home use. Their maintenance cost is almost zero and their reliability is outstanding. It is somehow obvious that automatic systems for other fields of activity, e.g. structural active control, will become more and more reliable at higher performance/cost ratio.

Table 5.3 Base isolated structures allover the world

Country Type of Structure Buildings Number of Structures Type of Isolation Systems over 200 Sliding Bearings Rocking Columns Pile-in-sleeve systems n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 6 Rubber Bearings n.a. n.a. 2 Nuclear Power Neoprene Bearings Plants 9 + several apartment High Damping Rubber houses of the Italian Bearings Navy Neoprene Bearings 156 (total length = Sliding Bearings 150 km) Rubber Bearings Lead-rubber Bearings Various Hysteretic Damping Devices ... ... 67 Rubber Bearings & Energy Dissipaters Lead-rubber Bearings High Damping Rubber Bearings Sliding Bearings over 100 partially Sliding Bearings isolated Lead-rubber Bearings High Damping Rubber Bearings Radar Tower Sliding Bearings 6 Lead-rubber Bearings Pile-in-sleeve systems Lead-rubber & Sliding Bearings 37 Lead-rubber Bearings Various Energy Dissipating Devices Industrial Chimney Rocking Foundation 24 Lead-rubber Bearings High Damping Rubber Bearings Friction Pendulum System Springs & Viscodampers 54 (total length = 11 Lead-rubber Bearings km) Sliding Bearings 2 Tanks Friction Pendulum System Heavy Equipment Lead-rubber Bearings High Damping Bearings Low Damping Bearings

Former Soviet Union

France

Bridges Other structures Buildings Bridges Other structures Buildings

Bridges Italy

Other structures Buildings

Japan Bridges

Other structures Buildings

New Zealand

Bridges

Other structures Buildings

United States

Bridges Other structures

Table 5.4 "Menshin" passive control devices

Type

Menshin Device

High Damping Rubber Bearing

Slide Friction Rubber Bearing

Steel Damper

Roller Menshin Bearing

Viscous