Semi-active Control of Structures Using Magnetorheological Elastomer-Based Seismic Isolators and Sliding Mode Control

Control of structures against the earthquake forces had been a keen topic of interest in research for past decades. Isolator being one such system which works passively to decouple the structure from the earthquake forces has many disadvantages such as large displacements, poor adaptability to varying ground conditions. Recently, magnetorheological (MR) elastomer-based base isolation systems have been actively studied as an alternative smart base isolation systems because MR elastomers are capable of adjusting their modulus or stiffness depending on the magnitude of the applied magnetic field. In this paper, MR elastomer-based isolators have been used to semi-actively control the structure subjected to earthquake excitation. Sliding mode control algorithm has been investigated and used effectively to control the structure semi-actively.