Future renewable energy communities will reshape the paradigm in which we design and control efficient power systems at the district level. In this manner, the focus will be fundamentally shifted towards sustainable related concepts such as self-consumption, self-sufficiency and net energy exchanged with the grid. In this context, the paper presents a novel approach for optimally designing and controlling the photovoltaic plant and energy storage systems for a metro station in order to increase collective self-consumption and self-sufficiency at the district level. The methodology considers a community of several households connected to a subway station and focuses on the interaction between energy sources and consumers. Furthermore, the optimal solution is determined by using a Mixed Integer Linear Programming Approach, and the impact of different configurations on the overall district benefit is investigated by using several simulation scenarios. The work presents a detailed case study to underline the benefits and flexibility offered by the energy storage system in comparison with a scenario involving only a photovoltaic plant.

The structural engineering community often deals with the issue of inelastic incursions of the structural response. Although buildings situated in seismic regions are usually designed using elastic analysis, most encounter significant inelastic deformations when major events occur. In general, material nonlinearity is the most important source of nonlinearity considered in the dynamic analysis commonly performed in structural design. In this paper, the recent concept of the force analogy method for 3D structures is developed and integrated into an accurate computational efficient algorithmic routine for nonlinear dynamic analysis of reinforced concrete frames. Moreover, a unique straightforward mathematical model for the numerical implementation of degrading cyclic behavior of structural elements is proposed and further used to simulate the response of a 10 story reinforced concrete frame structure. A set of nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed using the proposed algorithm in order to assess the structural damage in case of different peak ground accelerations seismic recordings. The seismic structural damage is evaluated using both structural response parameters expressed in terms of displacement and energy concepts.

In recent years, the pounding effect during earthquake is a subject of high significance for structural engineers. In this paper, a state space formulation of the equation of motion is used in a MATLAB code. The pounding forces are calculated using nonlinear viscoelastic impact element. The numerical study is performed on SDOF structures subjected by 1940 EL-Centro and 1977 Vrancea N-S recording. While most of the studies available in the literature are related to Newmark implicit time integration method, in this study the equations of motion in state space form are direct integrated. The time domain is chosen instead of the complex one in order to catch the nonlinear behavior of the structures. The physical nonlinear behavior of the structures is modeled according to the Force Analogy Method. The coupling of the Force Analogy Method with the state space approach conducts to an explicit time integration method. Consequently, the collision is easily checked and the pounding forces are taken into account into the equation of motion in an easier manner than in an implicit integration method. A comparison with available data in the literature is presented.

Designing civil engineering structures to meet the economic requirements implies that the structural engineer accounts from the early design stage for certain structural damage. The structural damages are thus managed to occur in specified locations and quantity, judging that after the seismic event takes place, the structural rehabilitation can be easily conducted. Recent New Zealand earthquakes events showed that this engineering philosophy can be obsolete: although the structures did not collapsed, the rehabilitation costs in time and money were almost the same as for a new building. This paper investigates the active control technology and their benefits in the case of seismic structural behavior. The optimal control theory together with Force Analogy Method is used and numerically applied for a 10 story RC frame structure. A comparison between the “controlled” and “no control” scenario is performed.

This study investigates the effectiveness of active structural control in mitigating seismic damage of inelastic structures. A fuzzy control algorithm is integrated into a custom-developed finite element routine to examine the relationship between maximum control force requirements and the resulting structural damage state. Consequently, a series of nonlinear dynamic simulations was conducted on 3D inelastic numerical models representing five building typologies—three residential, one office, and one school using seismic inputs from two historical earthquakes. Structural damage was quantified using the Park–Ang damage index. Key findings show that active control can reduce structural damage of inelastic structures, but its effectiveness depends on seismic input and the complexity structural layout. Lower forces are adequate for low-rise or simple buildings, while taller or complex structures require substantially higher forces, which may be challenging to apply in real applications. Moreover, the results emphasize how local seismic conditions and variations in building dynamic characteristics impact the demands in control forces.