Effect of Uncertainty on Seismic Control of Structures Equipped Separately With TMD and MR Dampers

One of the challenges faced in designing vibration control devices is the issue of uncertainty. In the present study, the performances of tuned mass damper (TMD) with two different design methods, and magneto‐rheological (MR) dampers with type‐1 and type‐2 fuzzy controllers are separately investigated to reduce the vibrations of 10‐ and 11‐story frames modeled nonlinearly. The main novelty of this study is the comparative evaluation of passive TMD and semi‐active MR control systems governed by statistically constructed type‐1 and type‐2 fuzzy controllers, while explicitly accounting for modeling and measurement uncertainties. Various sources that cause uncertainty in the design of control tools are considered. The MR damper and fuzzy controllers are statistically designed based on structural analyses without dampers. The structures are modeled in the OpenSees, while fuzzy controllers and MR damper are modeled in the MATLAB. The input of the fuzzy controllers is the relative velocity of the two ends of the damper, and the output is the required voltage of the MR damper. The investigation of far‐ and near‐field earthquakes showed that MR dampers with type‐2 fuzzy controller can perform better than type‐1 fuzzy controller and TMD damper despite the presence of uncertainty. By comparing the mean of the maximum responses of the two studied structures, it was observed that under far‐field earthquakes the type‐2 fuzzy controller has 4.48%, 12.54%, and 13.26% better performance than its type‐1 counterpart, the optimized TMD (OTMD), and the TMD, respectively, while the percentages of superiority under near‐field earthquakes are 2.73%, 9.19%, and 9.5%.