Science is for those who learn; poetry for those who know. —Joseph Roux This book is a continuation of my previous book, Dynamics and Control of Structures [44]. The expanded book includes three additional chapters and an additional appendix: Chapter 3, “Special Models”; Chapter 8, “Modal Actuators and Sensors”; and Chapter 9, “System Identification. ” Other chapters have been significantly revised and supplemented with new topics, including discrete-time models of structures, limited-time and -frequency grammians and reduction, almo- balanced modal models, simultaneous placement of sensors and actuators, and structural damage detection. The appendices have also been updated and expanded. Appendix A consists of thirteen new Matlab programs. Appendix B is a new addition and includes eleven Matlab programs that solve examples from each chapter. In Appendix C model data are given. Several books on structural dynamics and control have been published. Meirovitch’s textbook [108] covers methods of structural dynamics (virtual work, d’Alambert’s principle, Hamilton’s principle, Lagrange’s and Hamilton’s equations, and modal analysis of structures) and control (pole placement methods, LQG design, and modal control). Ewins’s book [33] presents methods of modal testing of structures. Natke’s book [111] on structural identification also contains excellent material on structural dynamics. Fuller, Elliot, and Nelson [40] cover problems of structural active control and structural acoustic control.

This book addresses problems in structural dynamics and control encountered in applications such as robotics, aerospace structures, earthquake-damage prevention, and active noise suppression. The rapid developments of new technologies and computational power have made it possible to formulate and solve engineering problems that seemed unapproachable only a few years ago. This presentation combines concepts from control engineering (such as system norms and controllability) and structural engineering (such as modal properties and models), thereby revealing new structural properties as well as giving new insight into well-known laws. This book will assist engineers in designing control systems and dealing with the complexities of structural dynamics.

My objective in writing this book was to cross the bridge between the structural dynamics and control communities, while providing an overview of the potential of SMART materials for sensing and actuating purposes in active vibration c- trol. I wanted to keep it relatively simple and focused on systems which worked. This resulted in the following: (i) I restricted the text to fundamental concepts and left aside most advanced ones (i.e. robust control) whose usefulness had not yet clearly been established for the application at hand. (ii) I promoted the use of collocated actuator/sensor pairs whose potential, I thought, was strongly underestimated by the control community. (iii) I emphasized control laws with guaranteed stability for active damping (the wide-ranging applications of the IFF are particularly impressive). (iv) I tried to explain why an accurate pred- tion of the transmission zeros (usually called anti-resonances by the structural dynamicists) is so important in evaluating the performance of a control system. (v) I emphasized the fact that the open-loop zeros are more difficult to predict than the poles, and that they could be strongly influenced by the model trun- tion (high frequency dynamics) or by local effects (such as membrane strains in piezoelectric shells), especially for nearly collocated distributed actuator/sensor pairs; this effect alone explains many disappointments in active control systems.

This text addresses the modeling of vibrating systems with the perspective of finding the model of minimum complexity which accounts for the physics of the phenomena at play. The first half of the book (Ch.1-6) deals with the dynamics of discrete and continuous mechanical systems; the classical approach emphasizes the use of Lagrange's equations. The second half of the book (Ch.7-12) deals with more advanced topics, rarely encountered in the existing literature: seismic excitation, random vibration (including fatigue), rotor dynamics, vibration isolation and dynamic vibration absorbers; the final chapter is an introduction to active control of vibrations. The first part of this text may be used as a one semester course for 3rd year students in Mechanical, Aerospace or Civil Engineering. The second part of the text is intended for graduate classes. A set of problems is provided at the end of every chapter. The author has a 35 years experience in various aspects of Structural dynamics, both in industry (nuclear and aerospace) and in academia; he was one of the pioneers in the field of active structures. He is the author of several books on random vibration, active structures and structural control.

Developed from three decades' worth of lecture notes which the author used to teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this unique textbook presents a comprehensive treatment of structural dynamics and mechanical vibration. The chapters in this book are self-contained so that instructors can choose to be selective about which topics they teach. Written with an application-based focus, the text covers topics such as earthquake engineering, soil dynamics, and relevant numerical methods techniques that use MATLAB. Advanced topics such as the Hilbert transform, gyroscope forces, and spatially periodic structures are also treated extensively. Concise enough for an introductory course yet rigorous enough for an advanced or graduate-level course, this textbook is also a useful reference manual - even after the final exam - for professional and practicing engineers.

Base isolation, passive energy dissipation and active control represent three innovative technologies for protection of structures under environmental loads. Increasingly, they are being applied to the design of new structures or to the retrofit of existing structures against wind, earthquakes and other external loads. This book, with contributions from leading researchers from Japan, Europe, and the United States, presents a balanced view of current research and world-wide development in this exciting and fast expanding field. Basic principles as well as practical design and implementational issues associated with the application of base isolation systems and passive and active control devices to civil engineering structures are carefully addressed. Examples of structural applications are presented and extensively discussed.