Fuzzy semi-active control of MR damper for structural base isolation

This paper presents four types of semi-active control on Magnetorheological (MR) Damper in an experimental base isolation structure model with three degree-of-freedom. The semi-active control methods include proportional-derivative (PD) control, and three fuzzy control methods: rule-based fuzzy logic control, auto-tuning fuzzy PD control, and discrete fuzzy PD control. The main purpose is to compare the response effect between passive control methods and semi-active control methods, and also compare within semi-active controls. The results of both passive controls and semi-active controls in experiments are presented. From the results, semi-active controls are shown more adaptive than passive control for this model when the earthquake type is unknown. Moreover, auto-tuning fuzzy PD control is proved to have relatively best performance among all control methods.