Active vibration control in adaptive high-rise structures using model predictive control

The growing demand for sustainable and resource-efficient construction has driven the development of adaptive high-rise buildings, which employ active structural control to reduce material usage while maintaining high load-bearing performance. This paper presents a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy for active vibration damping in adaptive high-rise buildings that departs from conventional tuned mass dampers by employing a distributed actuator system directly integrated into the load-bearing structure. Unlike traditional passive systems, the proposed control strategy continuously modifies structural properties to enhance damping across multiple vibration modes. To ensure practical feasibility, the controller explicitly accounts for actuator force limitations. A comparative study examines different levels of abstraction in the MPC prediction model to balance computational efficiency and control performance. In particular, it evaluates the prediction accuracy and closed-loop system performance of high-order structural models, with and without nonlinear effects, against analytically derived and data-based reduced-order models. The proposed approach is experimentally validated on D1244, the world’s first adaptive high-rise building. Results demonstrate a 62% improvement in vibration damping over the passive case, proving its effectiveness under real-world conditions. These results highlight the significant potential of adaptive buildings to reduce resource consumption in civil engineering. • Adaptive structures enable resource-efficient construction through distributed actuation. • Active MPC strategy achieves 62% vibration damping in adaptive high-rise buildings. • Prediction model abstraction in the MPC balances real-time capability and performance. • Experimental validation confirms feasibility on world’s first adaptive high-rise.