An Optimal Control Strategy to Distribute Element Wear for Adaptive High-Rise Structures

Adaptive civil engineering structures can actively counteract external disturbances by using actuators integrated in their elements, which reduces the structural weight roughly by half. However, the mass reduction leads to a higher susceptibility to vibrations and therefore increased wear of the structural elements. This publication presents an optimal control strategy that is able to redistribute external loads over the redundant actuators of the system by adaptation of the cost function. With this, the individual wear level of each element can explicitly be controlled, e.g. to realize a uniform wear of all elements. The proposed model predictive control (MPC) law increases the damping of vibrations and minimizes the elongation of worn elements. The proposed algorithm is evaluated in simulations by means of an exemplary wind disturbance. As a result, a significant decline of the elongation of worn elements compared to the application of the reference controller is achieved. Furthermore, the stress reduction of multiple elements is possible and the loads are distributed over elements with higher predicted life expectancy.