Active Structural Control

The material of this book flows from theoretical background to practical considerations to implementational'issues. Chapters 2 and 3 are concerned with the fundamental principles of active structural control and with the development of control algorithms suitable for structural control applications. Topics in these chapters are better understood when the reader has a working knowledge of elementary structural dynamics, random vibration, systems theory and control theory. Of the above knowledge areas, theoretical aspects of systems and control theory may not be familiar to some of the readers. Consequently, a brief introduction and a summary of results in linear control systems are given in Appendix A, together with a list of useful references.

Chapter 4 deals with practical considerations in control implementation. Issues addressed in this chapter include modelling errors, time delay in control execution, inelastic structural behaviour, and problems arising from hardware and computational limitations.

As mentioned earlier, several control devices are being actively considered for structural applications. In fact, large-scale testing is underway for some active structural control systems and, at least in one case, full-scale structural implementation has taken place. Discussions in Chapter 5 centre around some of these feasible control schemes with emphasis on their performance in the laboratory.