Abstract: Experimental verification of structural dynamics andcontrol strategies is essential for theoretical and numerical study, butonly the linearity of the structures was studied in the existing modeltests. Therefore, recently there has been an increasing interest in researchof establishing experimental model for structural nonlinear vibration. Inthis paper, MagnetoRheological (MR) rotary brake is used to mimic theplastic hinge of structure so as to analyze structural nonlinear vibration.By means of adjusting the input voltage to MR rotary brakes, differentnonlinear behaviors can be detected. Moreover, the dynamical neural networkand adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control have been experimentally verifiedunder different nonlinear behaviors by incorporating MR damper into thisexperimental model. Experimental results show that the structural nonlinearvibration model which is established in this paper can be recovered toinitial state without any cost after nonlinear vibration tests. In addition,different nonlinear behaviors can be achieved by changing the input voltageto MR rotary brakes. The intelligent control algorithms are experimentallyverified to be suitable for control of structural nonlinear vibration.