Response-spectrum-based design method for active base-isolated buildings with viscous dampers and hysteretic dampers

Active control has been applied to base-isolated buildings to achieve high control performance. A base-isolated building with active control has many design parameters, such as parameters of the superstructure, isolator, viscous dampers, and hysteretic dampers. The conventional control-system design uses trial-and-error approaches to select these design parameters and numerical simulations to estimate the responses of the system, causing a limited design outlook. In this study, we presented a spectrum-based design method for active base-isolated buildings with both viscous and hysteretic dampers for selecting the parameters of the isolator, viscous damper, steel hysteretic damper, and controller. The presented method estimates the maximum responses and maximum control force of the control system only using response spectra of the design earthquake wave, thus eliminating trial-and-error approaches and numerical simulations. Numerical design examples were also used to show the details of the design procedure and the validity of the presented method.