Development of New Control Techniques for Vibration Isolation of Structures using Smart Materials

In this paper, the effects of the restoring force device on the response of a space frame structure resting on sliding type of bearing with a restoring force device is studied. The NS component of the El Centro earthquake and harmonic ground acceleration is considered for earthquake excitation. The structure is modeled by considering six-degrees of freedom (three translations and three rotations) at each node. The sliding support is modeled as a fictitious spring with two horizontal degrees of freedom. The response quantities considered for the study are the top floor acceleration, base shear, bending moment and base displacement. It is concluded from the study that the displacement of the structure reduces by the use of the restoring force device. Also, the peak values of acceleration, bending moment and base shear also decreases. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the developed and proposed method. Keywords—DOF, Space structures, Acceleration, Excitation, Smart structure, Vibration, Isolation, Earthquakes.