Active Base Isolation of Building Structures in Two Dimensions

In seismic design, base isolation is a useful mecha nism for improving the structural response to dynamic excitation such as an earthquak e. Previous research has demonstrated the viability of this method, which ha s led to its implementation in many real world applications. Historically, base isolat ion research has focused on passive isolation; to date, active base isolation has been given only a cursory investigation. This paper will build on the foundation of research perf ormed by Mullenix, et al. and investigate the effectiveness of an active control strategy coupled with base isolation in two dimensions. The governing control law will be based on a frequency-domain based system identification and developed using the LQG algorithm. An uncontrolled case will serve as the base line to measure the effectiveness of the active control strategy. The results of this research will be experimentally ver ified by shake table testing of a scaled two-story, two-bay, steel frame structure in subseq uent studies.