Active and semi-active vibration control of buildings in Japan-Practical applications and verification

During the last two decades, active and semi-active vibration control of civil engineering structures has attracted growing worldwide interest as an innovative technology in the earthquake and wind engineering fields. In Japan, there has been rapid progress in research and development in the construction and mechanical industries and at universities, because the concept of active control is widely expected to exceed the performance limitations of conventional earthquake-resistant structures. As a result, about 70 active and semi-active control systems have already been applied to actual buildings in Japan since 1989. The 1995 Kobe Earthquake opened a door to positive development of semi-actively controlled structures against large earthquakes. Semi-active control research affects both conventional seismic-resistant structures and passively controlled structures. At present, structural control includes not only active and semi-active control but also passive control. Vibration problems in civil engineering structures are examined again from the standpoint of control engineering. Practical applications of structural control encourage monitoring and system identification research with recently advanced information technology. The observation records of buildings and controllers under dynamic loadings have been analyzed to confirm the effectiveness of the installed control systems. This paper introduces practical applications of active and semi-active control of buildings in Japan and reports control verification methods through observation data recorded in controlled buildings. The state of the art proves that structural control and its related monitoring technologies are growing as general design items for tall buildings and flexible structures. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.