Seismic protection of base-isolated building with nonlinear isolation system using smart passive control strategy

This paper numerically investigates the applicability of the magnetorheological (MR) damper-based smart passive control system with the electromagnetic induction (EMI) part to the seismic protection of base-isolated building structures with nonlinear isolation systems such as friction pendulum bearings and lead–rubber bearings. The EMI part consists of a permanent magnet and a solenoid coil, which produces the electric energy (i.e. induced current) according to Faraday's law of EMI. The produced electric energy is applied to the MR damper to change the damping characteristics by itself without any controller as well as sensors for reducing structural responses. To verify the efficacy of the smart passive control system to a nonlinear base-isolated building, a series of numerical simulations are carried out by considering the phase II benchmark nonlinear base-isolated structure control problem. It is demonstrated from the numerical simulation results that the smart passive control system has the comparable or superior control performance to the conventional MR damper-based semiactive control system. Therefore, the smart passive control system could be considered as one of the promising control devices for seismic protection of seismically excited nonlinear base-isolated structures. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.