Mitigation of seismic responses on building structures using MR dampers with Lyapunov‐based control

As losses of human lives and damages to buildings frequently occur during earthquake periods, it is crucial to mitigate structural vibrations. This paper describes the development of a Lyapunov-based control approach for magnetorheological (MR) dampers integrated in building structures to suppress quake-induced vibrations. In this work, MR dampers are used as semi-active devices, taking the advantages of the fail-safe operation and low power consumption. The control of MR dampers is, however, hindered by their hysteretic force–velocity responses and usually leads to indirect strategies compromising controllability and performance. To enhance the system performance, a Lyapunov-based controller is proposed here for direct control of the supply currents to the dampers for a multi-storey building. The dampers are configured in a differential mode to counteract the force-offset problem from the use of a single damper. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is verified, in simulations, by using a building model subject to quake-like excitations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.