On-line pulse control for structural and mechanical systems

This paper studies the feasibility of using open-loop adaptive on-line pulse control for limiting the response of large linear multidegree of freedom systems subjected to general dynamic loading environments. Pulses of short durations are used to control the system when the system response exceeds a given threshold level. The pulse magnitudes are obtained in closed form, leading to large computational efficiencies when compared with optimal control theoretic methods. The technique is illustrated for a structural system subjected to earthquake-like base excitations.