Development of experimental benchmark problems for international collaboration in structural response control

Abstract

In the past two decades, many control algorithms and devices have been proposed for civil engineering applications. Each control algorithm and device have their own merit, depending on the application and the desired effect. The ability to make comparisons between systems employing these algorithms and devices is necessary to focus future efforts in the most promising directions and to establish standardized performance goals and specifications. One approach to achieve this goal is to set analytical benchmark models based on large experimental models that allow researchers in structural control to test their algorithms and devices and directly compare results. Several benchmark structural control models have been developed during last decade through the sponsorship of the ASCE Committee on Structural Control and the International Association of Structural Control and Monitoring (IASCM). The main objective of developing these models has been a standardized evaluation of the performance of various control systems/algorithms when applied to different structural systems. An extensive analysis of benchmark structural control problems formed the basis for a special issue of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (Spencer et al. 1998a,b). Recently, well-defined analytical benchmark problems have also been developed for bridge structures subjected to seismic excitation through the sponsorship of the ASCE Structural Control Committee (Agrawal et al. 2004). All benchmark problems in structural control developed during last 10 years are summarized in Table 1. The main objective of developing benchmark models is for testing control algorithms. It provides a mechanism for researchers to try out ideas ahead of implementation. These benchmark problems were mainly considered for numerical study. However, experimental verification of the proposed control algorithms and testing devices (including sensors and actuators) also needs to be verified. Therefore, through the unification of numerical models and large-scale experiments, pursuit of experimental verification of seismically excited benchmark problems becomes more realistic. In order to truly demonstrate the capability of various structural control