Structural Vibration Control and Magnetorheological Dampers in Civil Structures

The research has furthered the understanding of a number of issues that are important to successful design and implementation of structural control systems. Issues such as Control-Structure Interaction (CSI), Digital Control Implementation, and Fault Tolerant Structural Control Systems have been investigated in the research. In addition, magnetorheological (MR) dampers are attractive new semi-active control devices that use MR-fluids to create controllable dampers. They are capable of generating large forces, offer highly reliable operation at a modest cost, and require very little power. Additionally, unlike active systems, they are not able to generate an instability in the controlled system, and can be viewed as fail-safe in that they become passive dampers should the control hardware malfunction. The results of various experimental and analytical studies indicate that these devices are quite promising for civil engineering applications.

Graduate Students: Tony Friedman, Ali Irmak Ozdagli, Xiuyu Gao, Huan Hu

Large-Scale Real-Time Hybrid Simulation for Validation of Advanced Damping Systems

Magnetorheological damper is a type of advanced damping system that can reduce the impact of earthquakes on structures. This video demonstrates the project that applies magnetorheological damper in large scale. Real-time Hybrid Simulation and Over-Driven Clipped Optimal Control are used in this project, and their performances are validated through experiments.

Graduate Students: Tony Friedman, Ali Irmak Ozdagli, Tong Li

 

Cyber-Physical Co-Design of Wireless Monitoring and Control for Civil Infrastructure

The objective of this research is to develop advanced distributed monitoring and control systems for civil infrastructure. The approach uses a cyber-physical co-design of wireless sensor-actuator networks and structural monitoring and control algorithms. The unified cyber- physical system architecture and abstractions employ reusable middleware services to develop hierarchical structural monitoring and control systems. This research will result in a reduction in the lifecycle costs and risks related to our civil infrastructure. The multi-disciplinary team will disseminate results throughout the international research community through open-source software.

Graduate Students: Charlie (Zhuoxiong) Sun, Sriram Krishnan, Nestor Castaneda