✍ Scribed by Caughey, T. K.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
In discussions at the conference two important problems emerged, the first problem recognized that structural engineers and control engineers do not speak the same language, which can lead to serious misunderstandings. The second problem recognized that it was not possible, in general, to compare different control strategies directly because the controls were applied to different structures.
The first problem was addressed in an extensive tutorial paper 'Structural Control Past, Present and Future' which was publish in a special issue of ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, pages 895-971, September 1997, Vol 123 No 9.
The second problem had been addressed by NASA in their space structures programme, the solution they adopted was to build a test bed structure and a number of sensors and actuators. Various control strategies could then be implemented and objective comparisons made. Clearly the IASC lacked the funds to duplicate the NASA physical test bed approach, so it was suggested that the 'Test Bed' be implemented in software.
Where the software contained an accurate description of a multi-story structure together with the dynamics of sensors and actuators. In this we were very fortunate to find that Professor Spencer and his colleagues at the University of Notre Dame had such a carefully researched software test bed. By applying different control strategies to the '¹est Bed' and measuring the response to a standardized 'Earthquake' direct comparison of the effectiveness of the control strategies could be made. Professor Spencer and his colleagues generously made their software test bed available and solicited others to implement their favorite control strategy on the '¹est Bed'. All papers were subjected to rigorous reviews and the surviving papers appear in '¹he Benchmark Problem', a special issue of the Journal.
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