Comparative Study of Seismic Control of Torsionally-coupled Asymmetric Buildings Under Near- and Far-field Earthquakes Using Hybrid Tuned Mass Damper and Magnetorheological Damper Systems

Abstract

This research paper investigates the efficiency of hybrid vibration control systems combining tuned mass dampers (TMDs) and magnetorheological (MR) dampers for the reduction of seismic vibrations in asymmetric ten-story reinforced concrete buildings. An extensive three-dimensional mathematical representation with two-way eccentricities is formulated that takes into consideration realistic torsional coupling effects. Six historic earthquake records with varied seismic features are used as ground motions scaled to a standard peak ground acceleration of 0.35 g. Five different control settings are test 1. uncontrolled baseline, 2. TMD-only system with 3% mass ratio, 3. MR-only system with four dampers in Passive-On mode, 4. hybrid TMD-MR system with passive control, and 5. hybrid TMD-MR system with a new Response-Tracking Semi-Active Control (RT-SAC) algorithm. Findings indicate that the hybrid RT-SAC setup is superior in performance with an average peak roof displacement reduction of 59.2%, maximum inter-story drift reduction of 46.8%, peak floor acceleration reduction of 48.5%, and base shear reduction of 47.8% compared to the uncontrolled setup. One-way ANOVA statistical analysis demonstrates that control strategy has a significant influence on structural responses (p ¡ 0.001), with control configuration accounting for 39.8% variance in peak displacement. The hybrid design offers a more consistent distribution of inter-story drift, with the maximum drift reduced to 1.18% (below the 2.23% exceeding code limits). Energy dissipation analysis indicates that the hybrid system dissipates 48.8% more energy than the uncontrolled structure while requiring a sensible amount of control energy of 92.5 kJ.