Effects of attack angle on performance of actively controlled high-rise building motion

Wind loading on high-rise buildings is complicated in nature, especially when across-wind motion caused by the vortex shedding effect is considered. Hence, wind tunnel tests serve as a reliable alternative for research on wind-induced vibration. In this paper, a four degree-of-freedom scaled (1:300) model of a high-rise building equipped with an active mass driver (AMD) system is constructed in a wind tunnel to experimentally verify effects of the wind attack angle on performance of actively controlled wind-induced motion. Using a system identification technique, aero-elasticity induced by the vortex shedding effect in the across-wind direction is appropriately modeled for control. Several controllers are determined based on the Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) theorem by which a dynamic output feedback equation using acceleration feedback is formed for practical consideration. Two LQG controllers, termed as two-state gain-scheduling controllers, are designed based on nominal systems constructed from along-wind and across-wind motions, and implemented on the building model based on the attack angle. Experimental results show that performance of the controller is remarkable and robust in reducing the responses of high-rise buildings under different attack angles of wind. The best performance is achieved under smaller attack angles, but it is slightly degraded when vortex shedding is most significant, i.e., for the across-wind motion.