Optimal design of actively controlled adjacent structures for balancing the mutually conflicting objectives in design preference aspects

• Published in: Engineering structures Vol. 45; pp. 213 - 222
• Main Authors: Park, Kwan-Soon, Ok, Seung-Yong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: Active control; Adjacent structures; Applied sciences; Balanced performance; Buildings. Public works; Exact sciences and technology; Geotechnics; Optimal design; Preference; Project management. Process of design; Seismic excitations; Stresses. Safety; Structural analysis. Stresses; Structure-soil interaction; Adjacent structures; Preference; Active control; Seismic excitations; Balanced performance; Optimal design; Structural design; Earthquake effect; Built environment; Modeling; Example; Analytical method; Construction structure; Excitation; Performance; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0141-0296; 1873-7323
• DOI: 10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.06.020

► We propose a preference-based optimal control design approach for adjacent structures. ► The proposed method can guarantee well-balanced control system among many objectives. ► The proposed approach is able to successfully mitigate the seismic impacts on both buildings. ► The proposed system uses smaller control force, power and energy than the typical one. ► The proposed system shows superior performance to the typical system in all aspects. A preference-based optimal design approach for the actively controlled adjacent structures is proposed in this study. For the vibration control of connected adjacent structures subject to earthquake excitations, there exist many objective functions that are in conflicts with each other. It involves suppression of dynamic responses of the two structures and simultaneous minimization of control efforts such as control force, power and energy. Conventional optimal design technique has some difficulties in designing well-balanced control system between multiple objectives of performance and cost so as to exhibit the best performance on reducing incompatible responses of the coupled system with minimum control efforts. In the proposed method, the concept of degree of desirability and the preference function are introduced. By using the designers’ preference, each design objective is aggregated and multi-objective optimization problem is formulated as finding the best compromising solution between structural control performance and control requirements. It is demonstrated in numerical example that the proposed approach is able to successfully mitigate the seismic impacts on both buildings by effectively utilizing and balancing the required control resources. As a result, the proposed system shows superior control performance to the conventionally designed control system in spite of using smaller control force, power and energy.