Optimal Integrated Design of Controlled Structures

Abstract eng:
Traditionally, the structure and the controller have been designed separately in buildings. The structure is typically optimized to minimize weight subject to stress and stiffness constraints and the control system is optimized to minimize a quadratic performance measure accounting for deformation and control effort. However, because of interaction between the structure and the control system, simultaneous optimization design of both systems may be necessary in order to obtain required performance with minimum cost. A design procedure based on two steps has been presented that is able to achieve the goal. Step 1: design of a weaker structure and of the controller independently in order to satisfy the performance requirements; Step 2: structure redesign of building and controller by changing mass, stiffness and damping matrix by minimizing the power of the active control force. The procedure is valid both for linear and nonlinear structures. A SDOF steel portal frame is used to exemplify the method in detail. The procedure has also been applied to the buildings used in the SAC steel project. This procedure is particularly efficient for tall buildings, where the demand of structural steel (or other construction materials) increases as the buildings become taller. However by using active control systems or equivalent passive devices it is possible to achieve the same performance in term of horizontal drift without increasing the construction materials, obtaining an overall weight savings and consequentially reduction of construction costs.

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