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Modified Friction Device For Control Of Large-Scale Systems, Simon Laflamme, Douglas Taylor, Mohamed Abdellaoui Maane, Jerome J. Connor

Simon Laflamme

Semi-active control of civil structures has shown to be promising at mitigating vibrations. Those systems typically perform significantly better than passive systems, and only necessitate small power to operate. Nevertheless, semi-active control devices are not yet accepted by the construction and structural engineering communities. Among impeding factors, semi-active devices are not perceived as sufficiently reliable or robust. In this paper, a new semi-active damping device based on existing reliable technology is proposed. It is composed of a stiffness element, a viscous damper, and a braking mechanism in parallel. The device, termed the modified friction device (MFD), is essentially a variable …