Development of the Test Bed Structures for Structural Control Research

This paper presents two sets of test bed structures for structural control researches. One is the 6-story steel frame (scale down model) and the other is the 3-story steel frame (almost full scale). The system matrix including the mass, stiffness and damping matrices of these two structures were identified using stochastic subspace identification technique by adopting the response data of white noise excitation. The 6-story steel frame (Floor: 1.5m*1m / Height: 1m *6) was designed for testing the developed structural control algorithm. Different control algorithms can be used and apply to this test bed structure to examine the effectiveness of the developed control algorithms. The 3kN MR damper (Lord Co.) was selected as the control devices for this 6-story structure. Performance test of the 3kN MR damper was also conducted to obtain the mathematical model of the damper. All these data (including the original test data) were collected in the control test bed data bank. Researchers can use this data bank to design the controller. Different from the 6-story steel structure, an almost full-scale 3-story steel frame (Floor: 3m*2m / Height: 3m *3) is constructed for testing the control devices. This paper will introduce these two test beds and demonstrates different test that had been applied to these two test-bed structures. Researchers can use these two test beds to develop the control algorithms as well as the control devices and test it on the NCREE shaking table The proposed structural models and data banks can support the development of structural control researches.