Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

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Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymssp

Active vibration suppression through positive acceleration

feedback on a building-like structure: An experimental study
J. Enríquez-Zárate n, G. Silva-Navarro, H.F. Abundis-Fong
Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N., Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Sección de Mecatrónica,
Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional No. 2508, C.P. 07360. Col. S.P. Zacatenco, México, D.F., Mexico

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: This work deals with the structural and dynamic analysis of a building-like structure
Received 24 April 2015 consisting of a three-story building with one active vibration absorber. The base of the
Received in revised form structure is perturbed using an electromagnetic shaker, which provides forces with a wide
5 November 2015
range of excitation frequencies, including some resonance frequencies of the structure.
Accepted 13 November 2015
Available online 2 December 2015
One beam-column of the structure is coupled with a PZT stack actuator to reduce the
vibrations. The overall mechanical structure is modeled using Euler–Lagrange metho-
Keywords: dology and validated using experimental modal analysis and Fine Element Method (FEM)
Active vibration control techniques. The active control laws are synthesized to actively attenuate the vibration
Modal analysis
system response via the PZT stack actuator, caused by excitation forces acting on the base
Positive Acceleration Feedback
of the structure. The control scheme is obtained using Positive Acceleration Feedback
Piezoelectric actuator
(PAF) and Multiple Positive Acceleration Feedback (MPAF) to improve the closed-loop
system response. Some experimental results are included to illustrate the overall system
performance.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The study on structural control of mechanical vibrations in buildings has recently become a research topic of importance,
especially in highly populated cities, where civil structures are usually affected by the presence of transportation systems
and seismic phenomena [1–4]. Research on vibration control in buildings is generally focused on the use of passive, semi-
active and active vibration control schemes [5,6]. Passive schemes, also summarized by the well-known Tuned Mass Damper
(TMD), are limited in their response since they are designed to inject extra damping or minimize a certain frequency or a
particular vibration mode on some structure. On the other hand, active schemes, also well-known as Active Mass Damper
(AMD), can provide a feedback and/or feedforward controller for a wide range of frequencies or vibration modes. The AMD
control scheme usually adds extra degrees of freedom and an actuator to the original model of the structure, which usually
increases the complexity of the overall system dynamics. The suppression or damping of the vibration frequencies in the
system is performed by computing a control force provided by an electrohydraulic or electromechanical actuator [5].
Recent technological innovations on smart materials provide new alternatives to implement real-time active vibration
control schemes on civil and mechanical structures. In fact, the smart materials used as actuators can offer good

n
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: enriquezz@cinvestav.mx (J. Enríquez-Zárate), gsilva@cinvestav.mx (G. Silva-Navarro), habundis@cinvestav.mx (H.F. Abundis-Fong).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.11.015
0888-3270/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
452 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

Fig. 1. Three-story building-like structure. (a) Schematic diagram, (b) experimental setup.

performance at an affordable cost [7–11]. Nowadays, there are piezoelectric (PZT) actuators that can be used to provide
loads of several tons and these have already been applied in civil engineering [8,11].
In this work, the modeling, characterization and experimental validation of a small scale three-story building-like
structure with a PZT stack actuator are considered for evaluation of an active vibration control scheme to compensate or
reduce the overall vibration response under harmonic and seismic ground motion. The control scheme is based on Positive
Acceleration Feedback (PAF) to attenuate a single mode of the structure and Multiple Positive Acceleration Feedback (MPAF)
to simultaneously attenuate the first three dominant lateral modes of the structure.

2. Experimental setup of the building-like structure

The primary mechanical system consists of a small scale three-story building-like structure, which was designed and
built in aluminum alloy with nominal stiffnesses ki ¼ 12EI=L3 , with Young's modulus E, moment of inertia I and total length
L between floors, as described in the schematic diagram and overall experimental setup shown in Fig. 1 (see [11]). The
maximum height of the structure is 450 mm with a rectangular base of 150  100 mm2. The building-like structure is


assumed to have three degrees of freedom y1 ; y2 ; y3 , describing the lateral motion of each floor and associated to the first
three dominant lateral modes of the structure and characterized by three concentrated masses ðm1 ; m2 ; m3 Þ, each of them
interconnected by two flexible beams in each mass represented by the equivalent stiffnesses ðk1 ; k2 ; k3 Þ; while equivalent
(linear) viscous dampings ðc1 ; c2 ; c3 Þ are considered on each interconnection.
The full structure is mounted on an anti-friction ball bearing rail and the moving base is connected directly to an
electromechanical shaker, which is used to provide the ground motion with low-frequency harmonic components in a
frequency sweep from 0 to 60 Hz as well as to emulate some realistic records from seismic events occurred at Mexico City.
The electromechanical shaker is a LabworkssET-139 controlled via a linear power amplifier Labworkss PA-138. A
National Instrumentss NI-CompactDAQ data acquisition system, consisting of a NI-DAQ-9172 chassis and a NI-9133 module
for accelerometers connected via USB to a PC running under Windows 7s. The accelerations on the ground and third floors
are measured with accelerometers by means of another data acquisition system, connected via USB to the PC, to obtain and
process the signals in Labviews and Matlab/Simulinks.
In addition, a PZT stack actuator is located on one of the beam-columns in the first floor of the three-story building type
structure in order to actively attenuate the vibrations affecting the structure (see Fig. 2). The Dynamic Structures & Mate-
rialss FPA-0500E P-1036-150-SS-1M3 110 Flextensional Piezoelectric Actuators was used. This actuator is embedded into a
mechanical arrangement with springs to amplify the longitudinal motion from the transversal PZT material expansion. The
nominal specifications of this PZT stack actuator are maximum displacement of δpzt ¼ 523:7 μm, equivalent stiffness
kpzt ¼ 0:934 N/mm, (unloaded) resonant frequency of 440 Hz, blocking force about 375 N and asymmetric operation voltage
from  30 to þ150 V controlled from a power amplifier (peak output power 50 W and output voltage range from  100 to
400 V) and whose external control input ( 2 to 8 V) is obtained from a data acquisition card installed into the PC, thus
making possible the application of feedback and/or feedforward control schemes. To guarantee a symmetric actuation and
protect its physical limits, the operating voltage applied to the PZT stack actuator is restricted to 730 V.
 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461 453

Fig. 2. PZT stack actuator mounted into the building-like structure for active vibration control. (a) Detail of the PZT stack actuator, (b) PZT stack actuator
with its power amplifier.

The active control force from the PZT stack actuator is described as uðt Þ ¼ F axpzt ðt Þ, and this affects directly the first floor of
the structure. This control force is applied to achieve the desired vibration control objectives formulated in terms of
vibration attenuation and/or cancellation at the third (top) floor of the building-like structure.
The base of the structure can be excited by the electromagnetic shaker, which is able to provide harmonic ground
acceleration (force) denoted as z€ ðt Þ ¼  Z ω2 sin ðωtÞ, where Z is the amplitude of the harmonic ground motion zðt Þ and ω the
excitation frequency over a frequency band, as well as seismic ground motion generated from realistic records.

3. Model of the building-like structure with PZT stack actuator

A simplified mathematical model of the three-story building excited by ground motion is obtained as follows (Fig. 1a)
M 3 yðtÞ _ þ K 3 yðtÞ ¼  M 3 e3 z€ ðtÞ þBf upzt ðtÞ
€ þ C 3 yðtÞ ð1Þ
 T 3
where y ¼ y1 ; y2 ; y3 A R is the vector of generalized coordinates of relative displacements with respect to a fixed frame of
reference, z€ A R is the ground acceleration at the base of the structure and M 3 ; C 3 ; K 3 are 3  3 real matrices of mass,
damping and stiffness, respectively. Here, the vector e3 ¼ ½1; 1; 1T A R3 denotes the influence vector, which allows the
transformation of the effect of the ground acceleration as forces acting on each mass [2]. The matrix Bf is a 3  1 real matrix
mapping the external control force into the structural dynamics and upzt A R is the active control force, which depends on
the voltage applied through the PZT stack actuator. That is, F pzt ðt Þ ¼ Bf upzt ðtÞ represents the equivalent control force to be
applied in the active control scheme for the overall building-like structure.
The mass, stiffness and damping matrices for the three-story building are given as follows
2 3 2 3 2 3
m1 0 0 c1 þc2  c2 0 k1 þ k2 k2 0
6 0 m 7 6
0 5; C 3 ¼ 4  c2 7 6
c2 þc3  c3 5; K 3 ¼ 4  k2 k2 þk3  k3 7
M3 ¼ 4 2 5 ð2Þ
0 0 m3 0  c3 c3 0 k3 k3

For modal analysis purposes, the Rayleigh or proportional damping model is considered, which means that
2ω ω
C 3 ¼ a0 M 3 þb0 K 3 where a0 ¼ ξi  ωi iþ ωjj and b0 ¼ ξj  ωi þ2 ωj , with ωi and ωj the resonant frequencies of the structure, and ξi
and ξj the damping proportion in the structure for the i and j modes, respectively [14,15].
In general, it is known that PZT actuators have an inverse and linear relationship between force and displacement: zero
displacement leads to maximum force and maximum displacement under maximum applied voltage yields a force close to
zero [12]. However, the equivalent stiffness kpzt of the PZT stack actuator is much greater than the equivalent stiffness of one
single spring-type column ks (e.g., right side between base and first floor), that is, kpzt c ks . As a consequence, the equivalent
stiffness of one column in series with the PZT stack actuator results in
 
1 1 1
keq ¼ þ  ks ð3Þ
ks kpzt
Therefore, the PZT actuator can be used for active vibration control into the structure without affecting the original
properties of the structure with an axial force F axpzt  ks δpzt . For more details on the physical modeling of PZT actuators we
refer to Refs. [8,10–12].
A complementary analysis using Finite Element Methods (FEM) is performed using space frame elements, with 2 nodes
having 6 degrees of freedom each one, for any beam between floors and plate elements with 4 nodes having 6 degrees of
454 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

freedom each one. Thus, the overall structure is discretized in 18 space frame (beam) elements (18 nodes, including
boundary conditions on two ground nodes) and 18 plate elements (36 nodes), resulting that the three-story building-like
structure can be modeled as a system with 324 degrees of freedom (see also [11])

M q€ ðt Þ þ C q_ ðt Þ þKqðt Þ ¼ F ðt Þ þBfq upzt ðtÞ ð4Þ

where q A R324 is the vector of generalized (nodal) coordinates, F A R324 is an equivalent ground force, upzt A R, and with
M; C; K mass, damping and stiffness real matrices of dimension 324  324: Moreover, the matrix Bfq is a 324  1 real matrix
mapping the PZT control force upzt . The details of matrices M; C; K and Bfq are omitted because of space limitations. This
specific FEM model is programmed in Matlabs and validated also using ANSYSs. Clearly, the FEM model (4) is more precise
that model (1), because this includes additional information about other lateral and torsional modes. Note, however, that for
vibration control purposes is preferred a reduced order model like a simplified modal model.

4. Experimental modal analysis of the building-like structure

For modal analysis validation the three-story building-like structure was harmonically perturbed on its base, with a
frequency sine sweep on the electromagnetic shaker, from 0 to 60 Hz during 60 s, thus resulting the ground motion
measured with a head impedance as described in Fig. 3.
The experimental Frequency Response Function (FRF) is analyzed using modal analysis techniques like Peak Picking and
Curve Fitting methods [13,14]. The corresponding experimental FRF is described in Fig. 4, where one can observe the three
dominant (lateral) modes of the overall structure.
The Peak Picking and Curve Fitting methods leads are simple frequency domain modal identification techniques for single
degree-of-freedom systems, which under the assumption of modes sufficiently separated and the well-known superposition
principle, then, one resonance can be analyzed at a time, extracting the modal parameters associated to each single mode. Of
course, there are several limitations to these modal analysis techniques, mainly that concerning with very close or repeated
modes, which in some cases can be dealt with software or application of special windowing spectral functions. For more

Fig. 3. Harmonic ground acceleration z€ ðt Þand corresponding force.

Fig. 4. Experimental FRF of the three-story building-like structure.

 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461 455

details on theoretical aspects and application issues about these modal parameter identification techniques we recommend
Refs. [13,14].
A comparison of the resonance frequencies obtained experimentally, numerically and using FEM model using ANSYSs is
detailed in Table 1. Note that, the results are close enough to validate the simplified model of the three-story building-like
structure (1), with respect to the first three dominant lateral modes.
The system parameters of the three-story building-like structure, obtained from direct measurements (e.g., masses),
computations from the geometries and physical properties of materials or via modal parameter estimations, are given in
Table 2.
It is important to note that, the viscous damping coefficients were indirectly obtained from the FRF, by considering the
experimental modal damping ξi and resonance frequency of the structure ωi . The modal damping is approximated using the
Peak Picking method.
A comparison of the modal parameters computed from numerical results using both simplified and FEM models, and
experimental results, is described in Table 3. In general, these variations are quite reasonable, considering possible modeling
errors due to manufacturing and assembly errors, measurements, uncertainty, etc.
The first three dominant lateral mode shapes of the structure are illustrated in Fig. 5. Note that, the analysis of the
torsional behavior in the structure is not considered, because, in this paper we are interested only on the lateral analysis of
the active vibration control of the structure using only one PZT stack actuator.

5. Active vibration control using Positive Acceleration Feedback (PAF)

The Positive Acceleration Feedback (PAF) control scheme is used to compensate the system response in presence of
exogenous perturbations from the ground motion z€ ðt Þ. This kind of controller is well known in the literature as a modal
control technique for vibration attenuation and reduction of the so-called spillover effects, which can cause instabilities for
unmodeled and/or neglected dynamics [6,15,16]. In particular, this dynamic output feedback control scheme adds an extra
degree of freedom to the original mechanical system, considered as a virtual passive vibration absorber or also as a second
order filter. It is important to remark that, different PAF control schemes have been also used for robotic applications on
robot impact control and force regulation tasks (see [17]).
The design parameters for this controller can be easily obtained using experimental data from a typical modal analysis,
which make the PAF control technique quite popular for structural control on complex mechanical systems. The term
positive acceleration is related to the acceleration coordinate, which can be obtained directly from an accelerometer located

Table 1
Modal parameters of the three-story building-like structure estimated with Peak Picking and Curve Fitting methods.

Mode i Natural frequency ωi [Hz] Modal

damping
Numerical Experimental FEM ξi

1 9.7568 9.0028 9.2635 0.0258

2 27.1268 27.2526 26.397 0.0125
3 40.2660 37.8119 37.944 0.0069

Table 2
System parameters.

m1 ¼ 0:2677 kg m2 ¼ 0:2761 kg m3 ¼ 0:3045 kg

k1 ¼ 12219 N=m k2 ¼ 3588:1 N=m k3 ¼ 3588:1 N=m
c1 ¼ 0:0258 Nms c2 ¼ 0:0125 Nms c3 ¼ 0:0069 Nms

Table 3
Comparison of the natural frequencies of the three-story building-like structure.

Mode i Natural frequency ωi [Hz] Natural frequency ωi [Hz]

Numerical Experimental Variation (%) FEM Experimental Variation (%)

1 9.7568 9.0028  7.7279 9.2635 9.0028  2.8142

2 27.1268 27.2526 0.4637 26.397 27.2526 3.2412
3 40.2660 37.8119  6.0947 37.944 37.8119  0.3481
456 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

Fig. 5. Mode shapes using ANSYSs. (a) First mode (9.2635 Hz), (b) second mode (26.397 Hz), and (c) third mode (37.944 Hz).

on an specific point of the primary system to be controlled, and whose signal is positively fed to the filter and to the
compensator (secondary system), from which is then processed and positively fed back to the primary system [6,15].
Consider the simplified model (1) of the three-story building-like structure with a PZT stack actuator as control input and
a perturbation at the base caused by the ground motion. It should be pointed out that, the PZT stack actuator is placed
between the base and the first floor of the structure, and so, this acts directly on the dynamics of the first floor. However, the
control variable used for active vibration control is the acceleration of the top floor y€3 . Hence, the proposed vibration control
scheme corresponds to a case of non-collocated control problem, where the sensor and actuator are located on different
positions of the structure.
First of all, the simplified model of the three-story building-like structure in Eq. (1) is completely controllable and
observable from the acceleration y€3 and control input upzt , respectively. The design of a PAF control scheme results in the
closed-loop system

M 3 yðt€Þ\t þ C 3 yðt_Þ\t \12pt þK 3 yðt Þ ¼  M3 e3 z€ ðt Þ þBf upzt ðt Þ

η€ðt Þ þ 2ζ f ωf η_ ðt Þ þ ω2f ηðt Þ ¼ gBTy y\  t€\3pt ðt Þ ð5Þ

upzt ðt Þ ¼ g η€ðt Þ ð6Þ

where y A R is the vector of generalized coordinates, z€ ðt Þ A R is the ground motion and η A R the coordinate of the virtual
3

vibration absorber. The design parameters of the virtual passive absorber are the relative damping ζ f and the natural
frequency ωf (tuning for the virtual absorber). The virtual absorber (5) is connected to the primary system with gBTy y.€ The
PAF control law (6) is represented by a proportional acceleration feedback of η€ , where g is some design control gain. In
essence, the PAF controller modifies the mass matrix and inject additional damping to some specific mode at a frequency ωf
and, therefore, the closed-loop FRF is affected.
In compact form, the closed-loop system can be obtained as follows
" #" # " #" # " #" # " #
M3  gBf y€ C3 0 y_ K3 0 y  M3 e3 z€ ðt Þ
þ þ 0 ω2f ¼ ð7Þ
gBTy 1 η€ 0 2 ζ f ωf η_ η 0

The stiffness and damping matrices K 3 and C 3 are symmetric and positive definite and, hence, the resulting closed-loop
stiffness and damping matrices are also symmetric and positive definite for any value ζ f 4 0 and ωf 40. However, the PAF
control in Eqs. (5)–(6) also affects the closed-loop mass matrix, that is,
" #
M3  gBf
^
M¼ ð8Þ
gBTy 1

which is not symmetric because BTy a Bf . Therefore, to guarantee the closed-loop asymptotic stability is sufficient to select an
appropriate control gain g such that the closed-loop mass matrix M ^ be positive definite [8,14]. Finally, in presence of
(bounded) ground motion the dynamic system response will asymptotically converge to a bounded steady-state response,
whose value will depend on the frequency and damping of the virtual passive absorber in Eq. (5).
In order to evaluate the dynamic performance of the PAF control scheme on the three-story building-like structure and
observing that, the second mode at ω2 ¼ 27.2526 Hz leads to worst behavior (see Fig. 3) then, the PAF controller is syn-
thesized to attenuate this particular second mode. The PAF control parameters guaranteeing closed-loop asymptotic stability
are summarized in Table 4.
 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461 457

Table 4
Parameters for the PAF controller.

Frequency ωf Damping ζ f Gain g

ωf ¼ ω2 ζ f ¼ 0:003 g ¼ 0:19

Fig. 6. Experimental acceleration of the three-story building-like structure in the third-story.

Fig. 7. Experimental FRF of the structure in the third-story and the PZT control effort.

The experimental results using the PAF controller for harmonic ground excitation are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. In general,
the results are consistent with the control objective, leading to an attenuation about 67% in the second mode, with respect
to the open-loop response, except exactly at the resonance, where perhaps occurs some knock down effect, attributed to the
asymmetrical operation and limitations on the PZT stack actuator. Note, however, that one can observe good attenuation at
the first and third modes, with values about 54% and 71%, respectively.

6. Active vibration control using Multiple Positive Acceleration Feedback (MPAF)

The single mode attenuation formulated in the PAF control scheme can be extended by considering the simultaneous
attenuation of multiple vibration modes by means of Multiple Positive Acceleration Feedback (MPAF) [6,15]. The MPAF
control scheme for the three-story building-like structure can use three virtual passive absorbers connected in parallel, with
a MPAF control law as the superposition of three PAF controllers.
458 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

Consider the three-story building-like structure (1), the ground acceleration z€ ðt Þ and an active vibration control scheme
based on MPAF control for its three vibration modes. In this case, the closed-loop system is described as follows
M 3 y€ ðt Þ þ C 3 y_ ðt Þ þ K 3 yðt Þ ¼  M 3 e3 z€ ðt Þ þ Bf upzt
η€ j ðt Þ þ 2ζ f j ωf j η_ j ðt Þ þ ω2f j ηj ðt Þ ¼ g j BTy y€ ðt Þ; j ¼ 1; 2; 3 ð9Þ

X
3
uðt Þ ¼ g j η€j ð10Þ
j¼1

where y A R3 is the vector of generalized coordinates, z€ ðt Þ A R is the ground motion and ηj A R the coordinate of the jth
virtual vibration absorber (j ¼ 1; 2; 3). The design parameters of the virtual passive absorbers are the relative dampings ζ fj
and natural frequencies ωfj . Here, the MPAF control law in Eq. (10) includes the superposition of the three single PAF
controllers, with control gains g j . Note that, using the MPAF one can simultaneously compensate three dominant lateral
modes of the structure, by modifying the overall mass matrix and properly injecting modal damping.
The 6 degree-of-freedom closed-loop system can be described as
2 3
M3  g 1 Bf  g 2 Bf  g 3 Bf 2 y€ 3
6 7
6  g 1 By
T
1 0 0 76 η€1 7
6 76 7
6 76 7
6  g 2 ByT
0 1 0 74 η€2 7
6
5
4 5
 g 3 BTy 0 0 1 η€3
2 32 3
C3 0 0 0 y_
6 0 2ζ ω 76 _ 7
6 f1 f1 0 0 76 η1 7
þ6 76 7
6 0
4 0 2ζ f 2 ωf 2 0 76 η_ 7
54 2 5
0 0 0 2ζ f 3 ωf 3 η_3
2 32 3
K3 0 0 0 2 3
y  M4 e4 z\  t€
6 0 ω2 0 0 76 7
6 7 η1 7 6 6 7
6 f1
76 0 7
þ6 0 ω 766
7¼6
7 \3pt 7 ð11Þ
74 η2 5 4
2
6 0 f2 0 0 5
4 5
0 0 0 ωf 3 η3
2 0

It is important to remark that, for closed-loop asymptotic stability, the closed-loop damping and stiffness matrices must
be positive definite, which is easily accomplished by selecting ζ fj 4 0 and ωfj 4 0, for j ¼ 1; 2; 3. In addition, the closed-loop
mass matrix
2 3
M3  g 1 Bf  g 2 Bf  g 3 Bf
6 T 7
6  g 1 By 1 0 0 7
^ 6 7
M¼6 7 ð12Þ
6  g 2 BTy 0 1 0 7
4 5
 g 3 BTy 0 0 1

must be positive definite to guarantee the overall closed-loop asymptotic stability. Therefore, the parameters g j must be
selected to satisfy this condition.
To verify the closed-loop system performance using the MPAF control scheme, the design parameters were selected
appropriately as described in Table 5.
The experimental results are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. Here, one can observe good dynamic behavior, with respect to the
open-loop response, employing small control efforts, and more consistently in the closed-loop FRFs. The vibration
attenuation on the three modes achieved values about 82%, 83% (except exactly at second resonance) and 90%, respectively.
In order to evaluate the tuning and robust capabilities of the MPAF control scheme, the three-story building-like
structure was submitted to seismic ground motion. Specifically, this test is performed using the vertical component, from a
realistic record, corresponding to the seismic event occurred at Mexico City in 1985 (Fig. 10). It is important to note that,
such seismic component mostly excites the first two lateral modes of the building-like structure (Fig. 11). However, the

Table 5
Parameters of the MPAF controller.

Frequency ωfi Damping ζ fi Gain gi

ωf 1 ¼ ω1 ζ f 1 ¼ 0:0079 g1 ¼ 0:21
ωf 2 ¼ ω2 ζ f 2 ¼ 0:0010 g2 ¼ 0:19
ωf 3 ¼ ω3 ζ f 3 ¼ 0:0010 g3 ¼ 0:25
 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461 459

Fig. 8. Experimental acceleration of the three-story building-like structure.

Fig. 9. Experimental FRF of the structure and PZT control effort.

0.3

0.2
Ground acceleration [m/s2]

0.1

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Time [s]

Fig. 10. Vertical component of a seismic event occurred at Mexico City in 1985 applied to the shaker.

application of the MPAF control attenuates the system response about 50%, with respect to the open-loop response, with
small control efforts (Fig. 12).

7. Discussion

In general, the experimental evaluation using PAF and MPAF control schemes resulted in good attenuation of the overall
building-like structure submitted to both harmonic and seismic ground motion. It is important to mention that the
460 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461

Fig. 11. Experimental acceleration of the three-story building-like structure for seismic ground motion.

Fig. 12. Experimental acceleration of the three-story building-like structure for seismic ground motion.

mechanical structure is distributed and, therefore, quite complex to get and use a more precise model (e.g., a FEM model)
and synthesize other vibration control laws to reduce the resonant behavior.
In particular, the simplicity on the application of PAF and MPAF controllers is such that one can only synthesize the
control laws by extracting information from a simple modal analysis, guaranteeing closed-loop stability and reducing
inherent spillover effects. Moreover, these controllers can be combined with other robust control algorithms (e.g., sliding-
mode control) or frequency-domain controllers (e.g., H 1 control), possibly considering additional performance indices to
improve also the transient behavior.
Finally, it is useful to mention that, the application of PZT actuators is deserving attention for civil and mechanical
structures, because they can be also designed for energy harvesting purposes and vibration control.

8. Conclusions

This work describes the application of Positive Acceleration Feedback (PAF) and Multiple Positive Acceleration Feedback
(MPAF) control schemes for active vibration control, using a PZT stack actuator, on a three-story building-like structure
submitted to harmonic and seismic ground motion. The building structure is modeled via Lagrange and finite element
methods as well as validation using modal analysis techniques. In general, the experimental results conduct to good
attenuation properties, with respect to the open-loop system response, for the first three dominant lateral modes,
employing small control efforts.
 J. Enríquez-Zárate et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 72-73 (2016) 451–461 461

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