Performance Comparison of Different Vibration Control Strategies

Structural engineers are always struggling with the unpredictable complexities of the extreme vibration due to natural or human induced loads. It is not possible to eliminate the vibration from structures entirely what so ever. Therefore, in order to keep the structures safe and healthy, the vibration needs to be mitigated and that can be done by adopting passive, active or semi-active type control systems. Those aforementioned technologies come with a price, hence, it is not so straightforward to decide which technology should be adopted. The passive vibration systems (e.g. tuned mass damper, base-isolator) can be found both in many old and new structures due to their feasibility and simplicity. On the other hand, many modern structures are adopting active and semi-active control systems (e.g. dampers) as an alternative to achieve better control on structure. Both the active and semi-active control systems are more expensive than passive control systems but they offer better control on structures. In order to understand the discussed issue, herein, a comparative study has been performed to evaluated their performances. A detail comparison among passive, active and semi-active control alternatives have been conducted. The outcome shows that the passive control systems can be suitable where deformations are and the other alternatives would be beneficial where large deformations are expected.