Several control strategies have been used for a comparative analytical and experimental study on a 2DOF system
equipped with a MR damper. The overall objective was to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control
strategies in reducing the responses of base-isolated structures when subjected to earthquake loads. Firstly, the
mechanical system as well as the MR damper were modeled, and good agreement between the numerical and
experimental data was found. Then the proposed controllers were tuned using the identified models and a set of
representative ground motions. Finally, numerical and experimental trials were performed and similar performance
trends were found. The passive case at maximum damping showed to be the best in reducing the base relative
displacement but at the expense of increasing the other responses. The SA strategies performed better than the best
passive case, and the LQR2COO exhibited the best performance, followed by the ICOO strategy. These one should
be selected if collocated control is required. The results demonstrate that SA systems are viable for this subject.