On the evaluation of the efficacy of a smart damper: a new equivalent energy-based probabilistic approach

Smart damping technology has been proposed to protect civil structures from dynamic loads. Each application of smart damping control provides varying levels of performance relative to active and passive control strategies. Currently, researchers compare the relative efficacy of smart damping control to active and passive strategies by running numerous simulations. These simulations can require significant computation time and resources. Because of this, it is desirable to develop an approach to assess the applicability of smart damping technology which requires less computation time. This paper discusses and verifies a probabilistic approach to determine the efficacy of smart damping technology based on clipped optimal state feedback control theory.