A Comparison of Direct Velocity, Direct and Compensated Acceleration Feedback Control Systems in Mitigation of Low-frequency Floor Vibrations

Numerous control systems, passive, active and semi-active, have been developed in past research to mitigate undesirable vibrations in civil engineering structures. Active vibration control (AVC) is emerging as a realistic option for mitigation of human-induced vibrations in office floors. Some AVC control laws commonly associated with vibration mitigation of human-induced office floor vibrations that have been investigated within this research include direct velocity feedback (DVF), direct acceleration feedback (DAF) and compensated acceleration feedback (CAF). The research presented in this work evaluates the bandwidths of effectiveness of the vibration mitigation performances of each of the aforementioned AVC control laws for idealised single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models of a floor structure with frequencies ranging from 1 Hz to 20 Hz. Modal masses and damping ratios of these SDOF floor representations have been kept constant. It was found that DVF performs best in low frequency floors while DAF performs well at much higher frequency floors. CAF performs quite well in both low and high frequency floors used in these studies.