• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.399-415
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• 2023

In this study, we investigate the use of a negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system to improve the performance of a base-isolated structure. The negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system consists of a tuned inerter damper connected in parallel with a negative stiffness element. To find the optimal parameters for the base-isolated structure with negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system, we develop an optimization method based on performance criteria. The objective of the optimization is to minimize the superstructure acceleration response ratio, while ensuring that the base displacement response ratio remains below a specified target value. We evaluate the proposed method by conducting numerical analyses on an eight-story building. The structure is modeled using both a simplified 3-degree-of-freedom system and a more detailed story-by-story shear-beam model. Lastly, a comparative analysis using time history analysis is performed to compare the performance of the base-isolated structure with negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system with that of the base-isolated structure and base-isolated structure with tuned inerter damper systems. The results obtained from the comparative analysis show that the negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system outperforms the tuned inerter damper system in reducing the dynamic seismic response of the base-isolated structure. Overall, this study demonstrates that the negative stiffness tuned inerter damper system can effectively enhance the performance of base-isolated structures, providing improved seismic response reduction compared to other systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.3
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• pp.221-238
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• 2023

This paper developed and examined a novel passive vibration isolator (i.e., "X-inerter") motivated by combining a bio-inspired structure and a rack-pinion inerter. The bio-inspired structure provided nonlinear stiffness and damping owing to its geometric nonlinearity. In addition, the behavior was further enhanced by a gear inerter that produced a special nonlinear inertia effect; thus, an X-inerter was developed. As a result, the X-inerter can achieve both high-static-low-dynamic stiffness (HSLDS) and quasi-zero stiffness (QZS), obtaining ultra-low frequency isolation. Furthermore, the installed inerter can produce a coupled nonlinear inertia and damping effect, leading to an anti-resonance frequency near the resonance, wide isolation region, and low resonance peak. Both static and dynamic analyses of the proposed isolator were conducted and the structural parameters' influence was comprehensively investigated. The X-inerter was proven to be comparatively more stable in the ultra-low frequency than the benchmarking QZS isolator due to the nonlinear damping and inertia properties. Moreover, the inertia effect could suppress the bio-inspired structure's super- and sub-harmonic resonance. Therefore, the X-inerter isolator generally possesses desirable nonlinear stiffness, nonlinear damping, and unique nonlinear inertia, designed to achieve the ultra-low natural frequency, the anti-resonance property, and a wide isolation region with a low resonance peak.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.615-626
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• 2019

Inerter-based damping devices (IBBDs), which consist of inerter, spring and viscous damper, have been extensively investigated in vehicle suspension systems and demonstrated to be more effective than the traditional control devices with spring and viscous damper only. In the present study, the control performance on cable vibration reduction was studied for four different inerter-based damping devices, namely the parallel-connected viscous mass damper (PVMD), series-connected viscous mass damper (SVMD), tuned inerter dampers (TID) and tuned viscous mass damper (TVMD). Firstly the mechanism of the ball screw inerter is introduced. Then the state-space formulation of the cable-TID system is derived as an example for the cable-IBBDs system. Based on the complex modal analysis, single-mode cable vibration control analysis is conducted for PVMD, SVMD, TID and TVMD, and their optimal parameters and the maximum attainable damping ratios of the cable/damper system are obtained for several specified damper locations and modes in combination by the Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm. Lastly, optimal design of PVMD is developed for multi-mode vibration control of cable, and the results of damping ratio analysis are validated through the forced vibration analysis in a case study by numerical simulation. The results show that all the four inerter-based damping devices significantly outperform the viscous damper for single-mode vibration control. In the case of multi-mode vibration control, PVMD can provide more damping to the first four modes of cable than the viscous damper does, and their maximum control forces under resonant frequency of harmonic forced vibration are nearly the same. The results of this study clearly demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of PVMD in cable vibration control.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.383-397
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• 2024

To improve the vibration control performance and applicability of traditional particle tuned mass damper (PTMD) and realize the significant characteristic of lightweight design, this study proposes a novel particle tuned mass inerter system (PTMIS) by introducing inerter system (IS) to the PTMD. In the study, the motion equation of single degree of freedom (SDOF) structure attached with PTMIS is established first, then the variation law of the system's vibration reduction performance (VRP) is discussed through parameter analysis, and it is compared with the PTMD to analyze its VRP advantages. Finally, its vibration reduction (VR) mechanism from the perspective of core control force and energy analysis is explored, and its cavity relative displacement from the application perspective is analyzed. The results show that the PTMIS can remarkably improve the vibration control effectiveness of the PTMD. The reason is that the inerter can store energy and transfer the energy to the cavity and particles, which further stimulates the interaction between the two parts, thereby improving the nonlinear energy consumption effectiveness. Also, the IS can amplify the damping element's energy dissipation efficiency. In addition, the PTMIS can effectively reduce the working stroke of the PTMD, and through the analysis of the lightweight characteristics of the PTMIS, it is found that its lightweight advantage can reach nearly 100%.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.149-163
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• 2019

By integrating an active tuned mass damper (ATMD) and an inerter, the ATMDI has been proposed to attenuate undesirable oscillations of structures under the ground acceleration. Employing the mode generalized system, the dynamic magnification factors (DMF) of the structure-ATMDI system are formulated. The criterion can then be defined as the minimization of maximum values of the DMF of the controlled structure for optimum searching. By resorting to the defined criterion and the particle swarm optimization (PSO), the effects of varying the crucial parameters on the performance of ATMDI have been scrutinized in order to probe into its superiority. Furthermore, the results of both ATMD and tuned mass dampers inerter (TMDI) are included into consideration for comparing. Results corroborate that the ATMDI outperforms both ATMD and TMDI in terms of the effectiveness and robustness. Especially, the ATMDI may greatly reduce the demand on both the mass ratio and inerter mass ratio, thus being capable of further miniaturizing both the ATMD and TMDI. Likewise the miniaturized ATMDI still keeps nearly the same stroke as the TMDI with a larger mass ratio. Hence, the ATMDI is deemed to be a high performance control device with the miniaturization and suitable for super-tall buildings.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.665-678
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• 2017

In this paper the tuned mass-damper-inerter (TMDI) is considered for passive vibration control and energy harvesting in harmonically excited structures. The TMDI couples the classical tuned mass-damper (TMD) with a grounded inerter: a two-terminal linear device resisting the relative acceleration of its terminals by a constant of proportionality termed inertance. In this manner, the TMD is endowed with additional inertia, beyond the one offered by the attached mass, without any substantial increase to the overall weight. Closed-form analytical expressions for optimal TMDI parameters, stiffness and damping, given attached mass and inertance are derived by application of Den Hartog's tuning approach to suppress the response amplitude of force and base-acceleration excited single-degree-of-freedom structures. It is analytically shown that the TMDI is more effective from a same mass/weight TMD to suppress vibrations close to the natural frequency of the uncontrolled structure, while it is more robust to detuning effects. Moreover, it is shown that the mass amplification effect of the inerter achieves significant weight reduction for a target/predefined level of vibration suppression in a performance-based oriented design approach compared to the classical TMD. Lastly, the potential of using the TMDI for energy harvesting is explored by substituting the dissipative damper with an electromagnetic motor and assuming that the inertance can vary through the use of a flywheel-based inerter device. It is analytically shown that by reducing the inertance, treated as a mass/inertia-related design parameter not considered in conventional TMD-based energy harvesters, the available power for electric generation increases for fixed attached mass/weight, electromechanical damping, and stiffness properties.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.481-493
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• 2020

The negative stiffness spring and inerter are both characterized by the negative stiffness effect in the force-displacement relationship, potentially yielding an amplifying mechanism for dashpot deformation by being incorporated with a series tuning spring. However, resisting forces of the two mechanical elements are dominant in different frequency domains, thus leading to necessary complementarity in terms of vibration control and the amplifying benefit. Inspired by this, this study proposes a Negative Stiffness Inerter System (NSIS) as an earthquake protection system and developed analytical design formulae by fully utilizing its advantageous features. The NSIS is composed of a sub-configuration of a negative stiffness spring and an inerter in parallel, connected to a tuning spring in series. First, closed-form displacement responses are derived for the NSIS structure, and a stability analysis is conducted to limit the feasible domains of NSIS parameters. Then, the dual advantageous features of displacement reduction and the dashpot deformation amplification effect are revealed and clarified in a parametric analysis, stimulating the establishment of a displacement-based optimal design framework, correspondingly yielding the design formulae in analytical form. Finally, a series of examples are illustrated to validate the derived formulae. In this study, it is confirmed that the synergistic incorporation of the negative stiffness spring and the inerter has significant energy dissipation efficiency in a wide frequency band and an enhanced control effect in terms of the displacement and shear force responses. The developed displacement-based design strategy is suitable to utilize the dual benefits of the NSIS, which can be accurately implemented by the analytical design formulae to satisfy the target vibration control with increased energy dissipation efficiency.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.241-253
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• 2020

The inerter-based vibration absorber (IVA) is an enhanced variation of Tuned Mass Damper (TMD). The parametric optimization of absorbers in the previous research mainly considered only two decision variables, namely frequency ratio and damping ratio, and aimed to minimize peak displacement and acceleration individually under the excitation of the across-wind load. This paper extends these efforts by minimizing two conflicting objectives simultaneously, i.e., the extreme displacement and acceleration at the top floor, under the constraint of the physical mass. Six decision variables are optimized by adopting a constrained multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (CMOEA), i.e., NSGA-II, under fluctuating across- and along-wind loads, respectively. After obtaining a set of optimal individuals, a decision-making approach is employed to select one solution which corresponds to a Tuned Mass Damper Inerter/Tuned Inerter Damper (TMDI/TID). The optimization procedure is applied to parametric optimization of TMDI/TID installed in a 340-meter-high building under wind loads. The case study indicates that the optimally-designed TID outperforms TMDI and TMD in terms of wind-induced vibration mitigation under different wind directions, and the better results are obtained by the CMOEA than those optimized by other formulae. The optimal TID is proven to be robust against variations in the mass and damping of the host structure, and mitigation effects on acceleration responses are observed to be better than displacement control under different wind directions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2024

In order to enhance the seismic performance of base-isolated structures on soft foundations, the hybrid system of base-isolated system (BIS) and shape memory alloy inerter (SMAI), referred to as BIS+SMAI, is for the first time here proposed. Considering the nonlinear hysteretic relationships of both the isolation layer and SMA, and soil-structure interaction (SSI), the equivalent linearized state space equation is established of the structure-BIS+SMAI system. The displacement variance based on the H₂ norm is then formulated for the structure with BIS+SMAI. Employing the particle swarm optimization, the optimization design methodology of BIS+SMAI is presented in the frequency domain. The evolvement rules of BIS+SMAI in the effectiveness, robustness, SMA driving force, inertia force, stroke, and damping enhancement effect are revealed in the frequency domain through changing the inerter-mass ratio, structural height, aspect ratio, and relative stiffness ratio between the soil and structure. Meanwhile, the validation of BIS+SMAI is conducted using real earthquake records. Results demonstrate that BIS+SMAI can effectively reduce the isolation layer displacement. The inerter can significantly increase the hysteretic displacement of SMA and thus enhance its energy dissipation capacity, implying that BIS+SMAI has better effectiveness than BIS+SMA. Although BIS+SMAI and BIS+ tuned inerter damper (TID) have practically the same effectiveness, BIS+SMAI has the lower optimum damping, significantly smaller inertia force, and higher robustness to perturbations of the optimum parameters. Therefore, BIS+SMAI can be used as a more engineering realizable hybrid system for enhancing the performance of base-isolated structures in soft soil areas.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.549-560
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• 2022

The optimum damping and tuning frequency ratio of the tuned mass damper-inerter (TMDI) for the base-isolated structure is obtained using the numerical searching technique under stationary white-noise and filtered white-noise earthquake excitation. The minimization of the isolated structure's mean-square relative displacement and absolute acceleration, as well as the maximization of the energy dissipation index, were chosen as the criteria for optimality. Using a curve-fitting technique, explicit formulae for TMDI damping and tuning frequency for white-noise excitation are then derived. The proposed empirical expressions for TMDI parameters are found to have a negligible error, making them useful for the effective design of base-isolated structures. The effectiveness of TMDI and its optimum parameters are influenced by the soil condition and isolation frequency, according to the comparison made of the optimized parameters and response with different soil profiles. The effectiveness of an optimally designed TMDI in controlling the displacement and acceleration response of the flexible isolated structure under real and pulse-type earthquakes is also observed and found to be increased as the inertance mass ratio increases.