Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42107-021-00355-2

ORIGINAL PAPER

Active seismic control strategy for comparable simultaneous

reductions of more than one response
Faisal Rather1   · Mehtab Alam1

Received: 10 September 2020 / Accepted: 6 February 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
Active control of structures is a widely investigated subject. In particular, control techniques using Linear Quadratic Regulator
(LQR) and Pole Placement have been extensively used in structural control problems. However, while using these algorithms
for controlling responses, most of the investigations focus on the maximum response reduction of a single response quantity
like, the peak roof displacement or maximum inter story drift. Accordingly, the control parameters are adjusted, mostly
using a trial approach. In this paper, simultaneous and sizeable reductions in more than one response quantity are achieved
by adjusting the control parameters using the genetic algorithm. Two control algorithms are considered in the study, namely,
the LQR and pole-placement techniques. The response quantities of interest are the peak roof displacement, maximum inter
story drift and maximum base shear of a ten story regular shear building frame actively controlled with the help of active
tendon system (ATS) placed at their optimal locations. For the study, four different types of earthquakes, two near fields and
two far fields are considered. The comparable reductions in the responses are achieved by including a constraint in the genetic
algorithm which does not allow the selection strategy to provide solutions for which response reduction is less than a speci-
fied value. Both response reduction and response reduction per unit control force are investigated to demonstrate the efficacy
of the proposed method. The results of the study show that (i) it is possible to obtain comparable reductions of the three
mentioned response quantities simultaneously by properly adjusting the control parameters; (ii) the control forces required to
achieve the target response reductions are nearly the same as those required for the best control of a single response quantity
using the trial approach; (iii) there exists optimal locations of the actuators/tendons for which best results (reductions per
unit control force) are obtained, and (iv) the pole placement technique provides better reductions as compared to the LQR.

Keywords  Seismic control · Active tendon system · Linear quadratic regulator · Pole placement · Genetic algorithm

Introduction applied is generated by a feed back system in which both

The aim of structural control is to keep the response of
the structures within permissible limits and prevent the
catastrophic responses at the time of earthquakes. This
purpose can be fulfilled by installing either supplemental
damping devices or by applying the external control force
or combination of both. On these bases, the structural con-
trol can be termed as passive, active or hybrid control. In
the active control of structures, an external control force
is applied to the structure, which reduces the responses
caused by the earthquake. The active control force to be
* Faisal Rather
ratherfaisal017@gmail.com
1 Active Tuned mass damper, Active Tuned liquid damper,
Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi, India
measured responses and ground motions are provided as
feed back information. Based on the initial information
obtained, active control has been divided into two types:
open loop and closed loop control. In open loop control,
the information received through sensors and transmit-
ted to the computer is the ground motion, while in closed
loop control, the response of the structure to the ground
motion acts as an input to the computer. Yao (1972) intro-
duced the concept of structural control back in 1970s.
Since then, there have been vast research in this field. All
aspects of active control have been studied and imple-
mented. Many active control algorithms like, pole place-
ment, linear quadratic regulator, linear quadratic Guassian
control, proportional integral derivation control, sliding
mode control etc., along with many control devices like,

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