Sliding Isolated Buildings with Smart Dampers: Shaking Table Studies

Response of sliding isolated buildings with smart dampers subjected to near fault earthquake ground motions is studied. The smart damper used is a Magnetorheological (MR) damper. A 1:5 scale two-story sliding isolated building model with four sliding bearings, restoring springs, and a MR damper is studied. A new Lyapunov controller is developed and implemented in real time. Several near fault ground motions recorded in the Northridge earthquake are used in the testing. Experimental and analytical results of the scaled sliding isolated building model with MR damper are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the dampers. It is shown that the smart MR dampers can reduce displacements further than the passive dampers, with forces comparable to the passive case. While these displacement reductions can be achieved by increasing the passive damping further, it can only be done at the expense of greater forces.