See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/271207182

Innovative semi-active storey isolation system

utilising novel magnetorheological elastomer
base isolators

Conference Paper · December 2014

CITATIONS READS

0 89

3 authors:

Xiaoyu Gu Jianchun Li
University of Technology Sydney University of Technology Sydney
12 PUBLICATIONS 5 CITATIONS 183 PUBLICATIONS 1,058 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Yancheng Li
University of Technology Sydney
69 PUBLICATIONS 278 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Application of magnetorheological elastomer in smart seismic isolation: device design, hysteresis

modelling and control implementation View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Yancheng Li on 21 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
 23rd Australasian Conference on the Mechanics of Structures and Materials (ACMSM23)
Byron Bay, Australia, 9-12 December 2014, S.T. Smith (Ed.)

INNOVATIVE SEMI-ACTIVE STOREY ISOLATION SYSTEM UTILISING

NOVEL MAGNETO-RHEOLOGICAL ELASTOMER BASE ISOLATORS

Xiaoyu Gu
Centre for Built Infrastructure Research, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology
Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia. xiaoyu.gu@student.uts.edu.au (Correspongding Author)

Jianchun Li
Centre for Built Infrastructure Research, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology
Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia. jianchun.li@uts.edu.au

Yancheng Li
Centre for Built Infrastructure Research, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology
Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia. yancheng.li@ uts.edu.au

ABSTRACT

Seismic base isolation has been a widely adopted technique for earthquake protection of civil
infrastructures. As the technology matures, new innovative designs of the base isolation systems
become increasingly attractive to researchers, especially storey base isolation systems due to its design
flexibility and better performance for seismic protection. Moreover, considering the unpredictable and
diverse nature of earthquakes, the conventional base isolation systems have reached their limit due to
their inherent passive nature which is incapable to adjust their isolation frequencies according to the
characteristics of the earthquakes. A recent advance on the development of an adaptive magneto-
rheological elastomer (MRE) base isolator provides an opportunity for the research and development
on new adaptive base isolation systems. In this paper, an innovative semi-active storey isolation system
utilising the novel magneto-rheological elastomer base isolator has been proposed. The proposed
isolation system design incorporates adaptive magneto-rheological elastomer isolators under each
storey of the structure instead of being only installed beneath of the entire structure. Such innovative
system allows high authority semiactive control of storey responses by instantly changing stiffness of
the isolator. Extensive simulation has been conducted to investigate such system using 5-storey
international benchmark model under four benchmark earthquakes.

KEYWORDS

Semi-active control, storey isolation, magneto-rheological elastomer, five-storey benchmark model

INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of the concept of base isolation, it has been fascinating to the researchers to adopt base
isolation system in seismic protection for civil structures, due to its distinguished effectiveness
(Komodromos, 2001). The base isolation system is to decouple the superstructure from the ground
motion by changing the stiffness and therefore the natural frequency of the structure and consequently
reflecting the energy of the earthquake (Kelly, 1986). During the last century, a variety of ingenious
base isolation strategies and mechanisms have been proposed and implemented into structures, which
has saved countless lives and great properties (Symans et al., 2002).
However, owing to its intrinsic passive characteristic, the conventional base isolation system is
incapable of coping with different types of earthquakes. Different solutions, such as active variable
stiffness (AVS) system (Yang et al., 1994), hybrid base isolation system with tunable damping
(Wongprasert and Symans, 2005; Kim et al., 2006), tunable stiffness and damping isolator (Liao et al.,
2011) etc. have been proposed and comprehensively studied. Among them, the adjustable magneto-
rheological elastomer (MRE) base isolator (Li et al., 2012; Li et al. 2013a; Li et al. 2013b) is the first
adaptive laminated base isolator prototype in the world. With the advantages of great MR effect, highly
controllable stiffness, low manufacturing cost and simple implementation, the adaptive MRE base
isolator shows promising seismic resistance performance. Therefore, innovative isolation system is
demanded to fully utilise the uniqueness and merits of the MRE isolator.
With the development and mature of the technique, the mid-storey isolation system is recently launched
as a branch and innovation of base isolation system. At the moment, the mid-storey isolation system is
mainly equipped in the high-rise buildings where overturning is one of the significant concerns with the
isolation system (Chey et al., 2009). By incorporating the isolation interface into a middle level of the
whole building according to architectural and structural design, the mid-storey isolation system can
validly reduce the vibration responses caused by earthquake and secure the stability of the high-rise
building at the same time. Many residential-commercial buildings with mid-storey isolation system have
been put into use around the world, especially in China, Korea and Japan (Zhou et al., 2004; Fu et al.,
2001; Ko et al., 2008; Sueoka et al., 2004; Kawamura et al., 2000).
Inspired by the concept of mid-storey isolation system, this study proposed an innovative semi-active
storey isolation system. By inserting the MRE isolator between every floor, the storey isolation system
is able to directly alter the stiffness of building structure by changing the applied current of the isolators
of the corresponding floor and thus endows the building with largest flexibility and high control
authority. Therefore, such storey isolation system solves the problem that the base isolation system can
only control the responses of higher levels above ground indirectly with the control force only applied
on the ground floor. A five-storey benchmark building model has been utilised for numerical evaluation
of the performance of this design. Comprehensive optimisation work has been conducted in order to
explore the optimal solution for structural parameters under passive control. Simulation results indicate
that the seismic resistance performance of the building with optimal storey isolation system is
significantly superior to the bare frame and building with passive base isolation system under different
types of earthquakes.

AN INNOVATIVE SEMI-ACTIVE STOREY ISOLATION SYSTEM

An adaptive MRE base isolator

Li et al. (Li et al. 2013b) designed and manufactured a highly adjustable adaptive MRE base isolator
transformed from a traditional laminated rubber bearing structure, utilising the distinct characteristics
and merits of MRE material. This design overcames the shortcomings of the traditional base isolator
caused by its intrinsic passive property by substituting the ordinary rubber element with the new soft
MR elastomer whose shear modulus can be changed by the applied magnetic field. Figure 1 shows the
photo and schematic graph of the MRE isolator prototype. As shown in the cross-section view, 26 layers
of steel sheet and 25 layers of MRE sheets both with thickness of 1 mm are alternately arranged in the
device. A solenoid is equipped outside the laminated structure to provide a uniform magnetic field. The
change of isolator’s stiffness with the increase of applied current under different external excitations is
presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Effective stiffness of the MRE base isolator

Effective Stiffness ∆ = 4 mm
(Normalized, kNm-1) 0.1 Hz 1.0 Hz 2.0 Hz 4.0 Hz
0.0 A 3.63 4.69 5.33 6.43
1.0 A 19.35 20.72 20.87 21.07
2.0 A 33.73 38.15 37.53 37.25
3.0 A 46.64 48.74 47.88 47.72
Figure 1. Photo and cross-section view of
Increase (0–3 A) (%) 1186 939 798 642
adaptive MRE base isolator
Design and application of the storey isolation system

ACMSM23 2014 2
As shown in Figure 2 (a), the proposed storey isolation system is formed by incorporation the stiffness
controllable MRE isolators under superstructure and between adjacent floors. Therefore, this storey
isolation system is able to operate in two modes: 1) isolating mode, which means isolate every floor
from the structure beneath it; 2) variable stiffness mode, which means the stiffness of the whole structure
can be adjusted at each DOF by altering the applied current on the MRE isolator.
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system, a five-storey benchmark model
building (Samali, B. 1999) is utilised. Schematic graphs of the bare building, base-isolated building and
storey-isolated building, where the MRE isolator and structural supporting elements of each floor are in
series connection, are shown in Figure.2 (b).

Figure 2. (a) Sketch of NDOF storey isolated structure

(b) Schematic graphs of models in three cases

Assume that and 2 , where is the average of the original stiffness of each floor and
is the assumed structural stiffness of the storey-isolated building so as to represent the stiffness
matrix of the storey isolation system. Thus, the equivalent stiffness between each floor above ground
floor can be given as:

(1)

Therefore, the stiffness matrix of the proposed storey isolation system K can be written as:

0.005 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
K (2)
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 0
It is obvious that is the only variable in K and shows the relationship between the stiffness of
MRE base isolator and original structure, which provides the possibility to easily control the structural
stiffness by altering the applied current to the isolator.

Optimisation of Model Parameters

Finding out the optimal parameters of the system under passive control situation is of great significance
in generating the guideline for structural design. Hence, the optimisation algorithm employed called
Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm, type II (NSGAII) and two objectives respectively
indicating the reduction level of floor acceleration and inter-storey drift are adopted. These two
objectives shown in equations (3) and (4) describe the maximum value of the peak acceleration and
inter-storey drift among all floors under 4 scaled benchmark earthquake excitations of El-Centro 1940,
Kobe 1995, Hachinohe 1968 and Northridge 1994.

ACMSM23 2014 3
 max max ,
(3)
:

| |
max max ,
max (4)
:

Where x t , d t is the are the isolated building’s floor acceleration, inter-storey drift of the -th floor
over the time history, , while x ,d are the maximum absolute acceleration, inter-storey drift of
the corresponding floor of the bare building (Ohtori et al., 2004). The optimal results of and and
their corresponding values of are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2. Optimal results and corresponding values of α
0.8436 0.8775 0.9708 0.9796 1.2648 1.2927
(g) 0.8847 0.8848 0.8849 0.8849 0.8850 0.8851
(μm) 27.001 26.054 24.113 23.913 20.619 20.438
1.4188 1.4863 1.5155 1.5311 1.6006 2.0000
(g) 0.8851 0.8852 0.8857 0.8859 0.8861 0.8895
(μm) 19.827 19.289 18.538 18.257 17.742 15.913

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Comparative simulation analysis has been conducted by introducing scaled time histories of 4
benchmark earthquakes respectively into the models of bare building, base-isolated building and storey-
isolated building so as to numerically assess the performance of these models. Moreover, matrices of
mass, stiffness and damping of the storey isolation system where α is 0.8436 are adopted as inputs to
simulate the responses.
El-Centro Earthquake Kobe Earthquake
4
of 5th Floor(g)

of 5th Floor(g)
Acceleration

Acceleration

1 2

0 0

-1 -2

-4
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time(s) Time(s)
5 5
5 5
Above Ground Floor
Above Ground Floor

4 4 4 4

3 3 3 3

2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 5
Accel(m/s2) Relative Displacement(mm) Accel(m/s2) Relative Displacement(mm)
bare base-isolated storey-isolated bare base-isolated storey-isolated

Hachinohe Earthquake Northridge Earthquake

2 4
of 5th Floor(g)

of 5th Floor(g)
Acceleration

Acceleration

0 0

-2

-2 -4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

5
Time(s)
5 5
Time(s)
5
Above Ground Floor

Above Ground Floor

4 4 4 4

3 3 3 3

2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 1 2 3 4 5
Accel(m/s2) Relative Displacement(mm) Accel(m/s2) Relative Displacement(mm)
bare base-isolated storey-isolated bare base-isolated storey-isolated

Figure 3. Time histories of acceleration of the 5th floor, variations of accelerations (peak acceleration @ top floor) and
inter-storey drifts (peak drift @ top floor) under 4 earthquakes
The time histories of the acceleration at the 5th floor in 3 cases under different earthquakes are shown in
Figure 3. Clearly, the optimised storey isolation system exhibits much better capability in reducing the
floor acceleration than base isolation system. Moreover, the acceleration responses of storey-isolated

ACMSM23 2014 4
building maintain at a very low value in the whole duration of different earthquakes, while the base-
isolated building is not as effective in controlling the response along the entire time history, especially
under Kobe and Hachinohe Earthquakes, where the response of the base-isolated building’s even
exceeds that of the bare frame at some time point.
Figure 3 also displays the variations of floor accelerations when the peak acceleration occurs at the top
floor in the 3 cases. As shown in all variations, the acceleration of the bare building increases with the
floor height except under Kobe earthquake where the maximum acceleration occurs at the 3rd floor. It
can be clearly observed that both storey and base isolation systems achieve considerable reduction of
floor acceleration contrasted to the bare building but the values of acceleration in the storey-isolated
building are smaller than those of the base-isolated one in every floor. Besides, under different
earthquakes, the shapes of the acceleration graphs of the base-isolated building are different, which
demonstrates a strong dependence on the external excitation of the base isolation system resulted from
its inherent passive nature.
Additionally, Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the variations of inter-storey drifts and the building profiles when
the top floor witnesses the maximum relative displacement. Inter-storey drift shows the deformation
between the adjacent floors while the relative displacement intuitively reveals the shape of the building.
As can be seen from Figure 3, under all earthquakes, the peak inter-storey drift of the bare building
always occur between the first and second levels, which implies the existence of a soft floor in the model.
The performance of base-isolated building is not quite ideal. In that the inter-storey drifts between 5th
and 4th floor are much larger than bare building’s corresponding drifts under all earthquakes and the
drift between 4th and 3rd floor is also larger than that of the bare building under Kobe earthquake.
However, the variations of the storey-isolated building exhibit a rather similar trend to those of the bare
building with much smaller value showing a much superior inter-storey drift reduction performance to
the base isolation system. Furthermore, the drifts of storey-isolated building between each floor are
almost the same and very close to zero, which indicates a rigid body motion of the superstructure.
It can be clearly observed in figure 5 that either the base or storey isolation system achieves the goal of
El-Centro Earthquake Kobe Earthquake
5 5

4 4
Floor No.

Floor No.

3 3

2 2

1 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Relative Displacement(mm) Relative Displacement(mm)
Hachinohe Earthquake Northridge Earthquake
5 5

4 4
Floor No.

Floor No.

3 3

2 2

1 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Relative Displacement(mm) Relative Displacement(mm)
Without Passive LQR

Figure 4. Building profiles of maximum relative displacement at the top floor under 4 earthquakes
reducing the relative displacement in each floor. However, the storey isolation system exhibits much
better performance than the passive isolation system with much smaller accelerations in every floor than
those of the passive isolated building. In addition, the profiles of the passive base isolated building are
quite different under each earthquake, which is consistent with the dependency of variations of
acceleration on the type of the earthquakes. Besides, matching with the observation of Figure 4, the
profiles of storey-isolated buildings are almost vertical lines, showing that the inter-storey drifts are
nearly zero and that every floor of the superstructure is moving synchronously like a rigid body.

CONCLUSION

ACMSM23 2014 5
 By employing a novel highly adaptive MRE base isolator whose horizontal stiffness can be greatly
changed by simply altering the applied electric current, an innovative semi-active storey isolation system
has been developed and studied by the authors. Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm has been
adopted to conduct the optimisation work so as to obtain the guideline for the design of structural
parameters resulting in good performance under different types of earthquake attacks. Extensive
simulation has been conducted utilising a five-storey benchmark building model. The simulation results
demonstrate that, compared to bare building and base-isolated building models, the storey-isolated
building is able to minimise floor acceleration and inter-storey drift of each floor at the same time.
Moreover, the structural stiffness of each floor in the storey isolation system can be easily controlled by
modifying the applied current to each isolator. Therefore, such isolation system allows high authority
semi-active control of floor responses, which is the next stage of this study.

REFERENCE

Chey, M.H., et al. (2009), “Semi-active control of mid-storey isolation building system”, Asia Korean
Conference on Advanced Science & Technology, AKC 2009, Resort World Sentosa, Singapore,
21-23 Nov.
Fu, L. et al. (2001), “Seismic isolation of civil buildings in the People's Republic of China”, Progress in
Structural Engineering and Materials, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 268-276.
Kawamura, S., et al. (2000), “Seismic isolation retrofit in Japan”, 12th World Conference on Earthquake
Engineering, Auckland, New Zealand.
Kelly, J.M. (1986), “Aseismic base isolation: review and bibliography”, Soil Dynamics and earthquake
engineering, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 202-216.
Kim H.S., Roschke P.N., Lin P.Y. and Loh C.H., (2006), “Neuro-fuzzy model of hybrid semi-active
base isolation system with FPS bearings and an MR damper”, Eng. Struct., Vol. 28, pp. 947–58.
Ko, D.W., Ahn, S.T., and Kim, S.I. (2008), “Seismic design of high-rise RC building having isolation
system in transfer story”, Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea, Vol. 2, pp. 312-
318.
Li, Y., Li, J. and Samali, B. (2012), “A novel adaptive base isolator utilising magnetorheological
elastomer”. 22nd Australasian Conf. on the Mechanics of Structures and Materials, Sydney,
Australia, Dec. 2012, pp. 763–7.
Li, Y. et al. (2013a), “Development and characterization of a magnetorheological elastomer based
adaptive seismic isolator”, Smart Material and Structures, Vol. 22, No. 3, 035005
Li, Y. et al. (2013b), “A highly adjustable magneto-rheological elastomer base isolator for applications
of real-time adaptive control”, Smart Material and Structures, Vol. 22, No. 9, 095020.
Ohtori, Y. et al. (2004), “Benchmark control problems for seismically excited nonlinear buildings”,
Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 130, No. 4, pp. 366-385.
Samali, B. et al. (1999), “System identification of a five storey benchmark model using modal analysis”,
The Proceedings of the International Conference on Applications of Modal Analysis, Gold Coast,
Australia, Dec.
Seioka, T., Torii, S. and Tsuneki, Y. (2004), “The application of response control design using middle-
story isolation system to high-rise building”, 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering,
13WCEE2004, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 1-6 Aug.
Symans, M.D., Cofer, W.F., and Fridley, K.J. (2002), “Base isolation and supplemental damping
systems for seismic protection of wood structures: literature review”, Earthquake Spectra, Vol. 18,
No. 3, pp. 549-572.
Wongprasert, N and Symans, M.D. (2005), “Experimental evaluation of adaptive elastomeric base-
isolated structures using variable-orifice fluid dampers”, Journals of Structure Engineering, Vol.
131, No.8, pp. 67-77.
Yang, J.N., Wu, J.C. and Li, Z. (1996), “Control of seismic-excited buildings using active variable
stiffness systems”, Engineering Structures, Vol. 18, No. 8, pp. 589-596.
Zhou, F.L., et al. (2004), “New seismic isolation system for irregular structure with the largest isolaton
building area in the world”, 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 13WCEE2004,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 1-6 Aug.

ACMSM23 2014 6

View publication stats