Adaptive fuzzy control for nonlinear building-magnetorheological damper system

Because of their intrinsically nonlinear characteristics, development of control strategies that are implementable and can fully utilize the capabilities of semiactive control devices is an important and challenging task. In this study, the use of an adaptive fuzzy control strategy is proposed for protecting buildings against dynamic hazards, such as severe earthquakes and strong winds, using magnetorheological (MR) damping technology. The proposed adaptive fuzzy control strategy involves the design of a fuzzy controller and an adaptation law. The control objective is to minimize the difference between some desirable response and the response of the combined system by adaptively adjusting the MR damper. The use of the adaptation law eliminates the needs of acquiring characteristics of the combined system in advance. Because the control strategy based on the combination of the fuzzy controller and the adaptation law does not require a prior knowledge of the combined building-damper system, this approach provides a robust control strategy that can be used to protect nonlinear structures with uncertainty subjected to random loads.