Structural Control for Buildings (page 5 of 13) 514 between two surfaces, which undergo shear deformation (Figure 10). 4.0 ACTIVE CONTROL ‘Seismic waves generated at the base of the building, take a short duration to reach the top of the building. In the meantime, the ground motion and the response of the building are monitored by seismometers (Figure 2). These signals are fed to a computer, which performs on-line dynamic nonlinear time history analysis of the building, and estimates the lateral forces that are likely to be generated when the wave reaches different floor levels. Signals are sent by the computer to the actuators located at these different levels to apply negatives of these forces to annul the seismic effect. On receiving the communication, the actuators become active and apply the’same. For creating stable response modification in the building, a feedback control mechanism is required. on the practicalities of using active control in buildings, wherein the control forces are large, some questions still need to be answered. Reliability of the control mechanism, particularly when most of the time it remains idle and gets activated only when a strong pulse is received, js one main question. The need for large external power source to operate the actuators, is the other question. The magnitude of control force, and hence the power required, can be quite significant and may even become prohibitive S.0 EQUILIBRIUM EQUATION The equation of motion of a multi-degree-of-freedom building system subjected to seismic base excitation and external control forces 1s: = Mruw(t) + £, a ‘a © Mu”(t) + Gu’ (t) + Ku(t) where f, 1s the control force vector and all other terms hold the usual connotation of selsmic analysis. The control forces are applied only along discrete locations. In active control, f, is a function of response quantities u(t), u/(t) and u(t); ground excitation us(t); a predetermined time delay t; and time t, in addition to a stable predictive control logic. In passive control, £, is only a function of response quantities u’(t) and u(t).