Structural control design and defective systems

The intersection between the two concepts of structural control and defectiveness is discussed. Two simple oscillators differently connected by serial spring-dashpot arrangement are used to simply simulate technically relevant cases: dissipatively coupled adjacent free-standing structures, structures equipped by TMD and base-isolated structures. Eigensolution loci of the two classes of systems are tracked against one or more significant parameters to determine the potential benefits realized by different combinations of stiffness and viscosity. In both studied cases, codimension-two manifolds in the four-parameter space corresponding to coalescing eigenvalues are determined by analytical expressions. Conditions to discern semi-simple eigenvalues from defective ones confirm that the latter is the generic case laying in a two-parameter space while the former span a one-parameter subspace. The knowledge of the location of the defective systems in the parameter space permits to determine regions with specific dynamical properties useful for control design purpose. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.