Erratum to: The use of displacement threshold for switching frequency strategy for structural vibration mitigation

Abstract

This paper presents a study of controllable real-time frequency shift using a fluid pin damper, so called ‘smart pin’, mounted at a beam-column connection. Unlike the stationary frequency shifter, the pin can increase or decrease the rotational stiffness of the connection, leading to an actively adjustable structural frequency due to real-time responses of polarised magneto-rheological (MR) fluid, whose rheological properties can change in milliseconds. The feedback to the pin damper governs the structural frequency changes. To demonstrate this concept, a single storey plane steel frame model with one hinge and one ‘smart pin’ damper, mounted at each beam-column connection and subjected to two scaled earthquake excitations, namely El-Centro 1940 and Northridge 1994, which respectively represent near- and farfield excitations, was tested using the shake table at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) structures laboratory, for ‘proof-of-concept’ investigation. Further, the dynamic performance of the model using a proposed switching strategy with a displacement threshold as an indicator for alternately supplied current level (flip-flop) was examined, assuming the earthquake records were known. The results showed some potential use of this control technique for structural vibration mitigation, however, further study to optimize the performance of the switching strategy is still required.