The Use of Pendulums in Oscillations Control of “rocking-block” Type Buildings

This research deals with the dynamical evolutions played by a simple mechanical model. The model is constituted of a parallelepiped standing on a horizontal plane. As the plane performs vibrational displacements the parallelepiped begins to evolve its positions and, this “parallelepiped movements” constitutes the subject of our concern. Plane movement is assumed so, notwithstanding we name it as a parallelepiped, or “rocking block”, the structure is actually schematized as a “physical rectangle”. From this simple model and its elaboration by adding a planar physical pendulum and some damping between the parallelepiped and the ground surface, some interesting results have been achieved.