Iranian Researchers Design Control System to Improve Seismic Behavior of Structures

“Using control systems to improve the behavior of structures against dynamic loads like earthquake has attracted attention in recent decades,” said Pegah Naderpour Shad, a PhD student of Amirkabir University of Technology and the main researcher of the project.

“We succeeded in designing a fault-tolerant adaptive control system for sensors and dampers based on dynamic neural network in tall structures,” she added.

Noting that the adaptability of the designed control system makes it possible to neutralize the effects of the unknown features of the structure at the same time, Naderpour Shad said, “To design a control system that tolerates simultaneous faults in sensors and dampers, first, the structure is divided into two substructures, by using transformation matrices, each of which is only affected by sensor or damper failure, and by designing an observer based on the dynamic neural network the fault of the sensors and the state of the structure is assessed.”

“As the next step, an adaptive controller is designed which overcomes the uncertainty of the structure's features with the adaptation rules,” she added.

In a relevant development in November, an Iranian designer and producer of "seismic damper" working with Islamic Azad University told ANA that damages to the building in earthquakes and floods can be prevented with the device.

Ali Qamari, designer and producer of "earthquake damper", said that “earthquakes always cause damage to the buildings and also cause human and financial losses. We came up with the idea to design and make a device that is added to the structure and does not cost much, and with this part, damage to the building in earthquakes and floods can be prevented. The item is called ‘earthquake damper”.

He added that the project to produce the device was conducted in and sponsored by the Islamic Azad University, Ilam branch, and added, "We proposed the ‘seismic damper’ to ‘Inha’ University of South Korea and asked them to conduct a laboratory test of this idea, and the university confirmed the device we finally produced the device after passing the tests.”

“South Korea's Inha University supported us by paying $4,000 to conduct tests and studies of the idea and finally we made its parts and the result was what we predicted and now its performance is what we wanted and acceptable and the results of relevant studies were also published in three ISI papers,” the researcher further asserted.

Qamari stated the device is added to the structure of the building.

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