Lateral-Torsional Response Control of MR Damper Connected Buildings

Lateral-torsional seismic response control of two single-storey asymmetric plan buildings, interconnected using multiple magnetorheological (MR) dampers, is studied. LQR control is used to obtain desired control forces. The desired damper force, for the two damper case studied herein, is obtained using least square minimization. Command voltages for the dampers are predicted using either a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) or Clipped Voltage Law (CVL). Effective controllers are obtained based on performance criteria, by varying damper configurations and using ElCentro excitation. Response for harmonic excitation is obtained using the effective controllers. LQR-CVL and LQR-RNN prove considerably more effective than Passive-off control for response reduction of flexible building B1 but not so for rigid building B2. They yield a re-distribution of base shear and torque between the buildings. When compared to Passive-on control their performance ranges from superior to comparable, except for torsional acceleration of B2 for which it is inferior. They yield considerable reduction in peak base shear/torque, and require much less power, compared to Passive-on control where saturation voltage is applied. LQR-RNN is somewhat more effective than LQR-CVL in response attenuation. Hence, lateral-torsional response of adjacent asymmetric buildings can be attenuated using MR damper coupling driven by a LQR-RNN controller