Smart passive control of seismic structural vibrations exploiting early warning information

Abstract

The combined use of two emerging technologies in the field of seismic engineering, apparently far each other, is focused herein. The first, semi-active (SA) control aims at smartly reduce the seismic effects induced by the earthquake on the structures; the second, seismic early warning (SEW) is instead addressed to make anticipate estimate of the intensity measures of an incoming earthquake some seconds before it strikes a given site. Current research on SEW include the anticipate estimate of the peak ground acceleration (PGA). The paper proposes the exploitation of this earthquake parameter in the framework of SA control strategies. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is assessed and compared with other more consolidated control strategies. Possible errors on estimation of PGA provided by the SEW system and their influence on the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy are also discussed.