SEISMIC RESPONSE CONTROLLED STRUCTURE WITH ACTIVE VARIABLE STIFFNESS SYSTEM

The Active Variable Stiffness (AVS) system is proposed as a seismic re sponse control system. It actively controls structural characteristics , such as stiffness of a building, to establish a non-resonant state a gainst earthquake excitations, thus suppressing the building's respons e. It consumes a relatively small amount of energy and maintains the s afety of the building in moderate to severe earthquakes. In order to a ccumulate practical data and investigate them, a building has been con structed as a trial. This paper describes the applied system, the cont rol algorithm, verification of stiffness selection, results of tests f or verifying system characteristics, some observed earthquake records and simulation analyses. Responses in controlled and uncontrolled stat es have been compared to show the effectiveness of the proposed system .