摘要：Semi-active seismic isolation systems using controllable friction dampers had been proposed to reduce response acceleration and displacement compared with those of passive systems, although there was the problem that the dampers might fail to generate damping forces due to malfunctions in strong earthquakes. To solve the problem, a new type of controllable friction damper with a fail-safe mechanism was developed in this study. For the damper, piezoelectric actuators were used to make the mechanism simple since piezoelectric actuators are compact, can produce quick responses and produce large forces. Several experiments were conducted to obtain the characteristics of the new controllable friction damper. Moreover, numerical simulations and excitation tests were carried out for the semi-active seismic isolation system using the new controllable friction damper, showing good performance in the reduction of response acceleration and displacement together with higher reliability and safety compared with systems using conventional controllable friction dampers.
