Observed Response of Actively Controlled Structures

Several active control systems have been developed, fabricated, and installed in full-scale structures and they have been subjected to actual wind forces and ground motions. The focus of this paper is on the observed response of one of these systems, an active bracing system, which was subjected to several recent earthquake episodes. It is shown that the active system performs, by and large, as expected, and its performance can be adequately predicted through simplified analytical and simulation procedures. The observed performance of the active bracing system is also compared with that of another system, an active mass damper, which was installed in the same structure.