• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 1992.04a
• /
• pp.26-29
• /
• 1992

Modern tall buildings are subject to wind induced oscillations. Those oscillations can cause discomfort to the occupants. To control these motions, tuned mass dampers have been used. In this paper, component node synthesis, based on Lagrange multipliers formulation. is applied to the along-wind motion of tall buildings with multiple tuned mass dampers. Spectral densities of accelerations of top floor are compared by changing the numbers and locations of tuned mass dampers. It is found that multiple tuned mass dampers can be more effective than single tuned mass damper in reducing the acceleration response.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.1-24
• /
• 2006

The optimal design of multiple tuned mass dampers (multiple TMD's) to suppress multi-mode structural response of beams and floor structures was investigated. A new method using a numerical optimizer, which can effectively handle a large number of design variables, was employed to search for both optimal placement and tuning of TMD's for these structures under wide-band loading. The first design problem considered was vibration control of a simple beam using 10 TMD's. The results confirmed that for structures with widelyspaced natural frequencies, multiple TMD's can be adequately designed by treating each structural vibration mode as an equivalent SDOF system. Next, the control of a beam structure with two closely-spaced natural frequencies was investigated. The results showed that the most effective multiple TMD's have their natural frequencies distributed over a range covering the two controlled structural frequencies and have low damping ratios. Moreover, a single TMD can also be made effective in controlling two modes with closely spaced frequencies by a newly identified control mechanism, but the effectiveness can be greatly impaired when the loading position changes. Finally, a realistic problem of a large floor structure with 5 closely spaced frequencies was presented. The acceleration responses at 5 positions on the floor excited by 3 wide-band forces were simultaneously suppressed using 10 TMD's. The obtained multiple TMD's were shown to be very effective and robust.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.62 no.1
• /
• pp.55-64
• /
• 2017

An effective design approach for Multiple Tuned Mass Dampers (MTMDs) in pedestrian bridges was proposed by utilizing the transfer function to obtain each TMD's optimum stiffness and damping. A systematic simulation of pedestrian excitations was described. The motion equation of a typical MTMD system attached to a Multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system was presented, and the transfer function from the input pedestrian excitations to the output acceleration responses was defined. By solving the minimum norm of the transfer function, the parameters of the MTMD which resulted in the minimum overall responses can be obtained. Two applications of lightly damped pedestrian bridges attached with MTMD showed that MTMDs designed through this method can significantly reduce the structural responses when subjected to pedestrian excitations, and the vibration control effects were better than the MTMD when it was considered as being composed of equal number and mass ratios of TMDs designed by classical Den Hartog method.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.49-61
• /
• 2020

This paper proposes a novel high performance vibration control device, multiple tuned mass dampers-inerters (MTMDI), to suppress the oscillatory motions of structures. The MTMDI, similar to the MTMD, involves multiple tuned mass damper-inerter (TMDI) units. In order to reveal the basic performance of the MTMDI, it is installed on a single degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure excited by the ground acceleration, and the dynamic magnification factors (DMF) of the structure-MTMDI system are formulated. The optimization criterion is determined as the minimization of maximum values of the relative displacement's DMF for the controlled structure. Based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to tune the optimum parameters of the MTMDI, its performance has been investigated and evaluated in terms of control effectiveness, strokes, stiffness and damping coefficient, inerter element force, and robustness in frequency domain. Meanwhile, further comparison between the MTMDI with MTMD has been conducted. Numerical results clearly demonstrate the MTMDI outperforms the MTMD in control effectiveness and strokes of mass blocks. Additionally, in the aspects of frequency perturbations on both earthquake excitations and structures, the robustness of the MTMDI is also better than the MTMD.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.143-162
• /
• 2019

Motivated by a simpler and more compact hybrid active tuned mass damper (ATMD) system with wide frequency spacing (i.e., high robustness) but not reducing the effectiveness using the least number of ATMD units, the active tuned tandem mass dampers (ATTMD) have been proposed to attenuate undesirable oscillations of structures under the ground acceleration. Likewise, it is expected that the frequency spacing of the ATTMD is comparable to that of the active multiple tuned mass dampers (AMTMD) or the multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD). In accordance with the mode generalised system in the specific vibration mode being controlled (simply referred herein to as the structure), the closed-form expression of the dimensionless displacement variances has been derived for the structure with the attached ATTMD. The criterion for the optimum searching may then be determined as minimization of the dimensionless displacement variances. Employing the gradient-based optimization technique, the effects of varying key parameters on the performance of the ATTMD have been scrutinized in order to probe into its superiority. Meanwhile, for the purpose of a systematic comparison, the optimum results of two active tuned mass dampers (two ATMDs), two tuned mass dampers (two TMDs) without the linking damper, and the TTMD are included into consideration. Subsequent to work in the frequency domain, a real-time Simulink implementation of dynamic analysis of the structure with the ATTMD under earthquakes is carried out to verify the findings of effectiveness and stroke in the frequency domain. Results clearly show that the findings in the time domain support the ones in the frequency domain. The whole work demonstrates that ATTMD outperforms two ATMDs, two TMDs, and TTMD. Thereinto, a wide frequency spacing feature of the ATTMD is its highlight, thus deeming it a high robustness control device. Furthermore, the ATTMD system only needs the linking dashpot, thus embodying its simplicity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.63 no.4
• /
• pp.537-549
• /
• 2017

One of the main concerns of civil engineering researchers is developing or modifying an energy dissipation system that can effectively control structural vibrations, and keep the structural response within tolerable limits during unpredictable events like earthquakes, wind and any kind of thrust load. This article proposes a new type of mass damper system for controlling wideband earthquake vibrations, called Multiple Wall Dampers (MWD). The basic principle of the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) was used to design the proposed wall damper system. This passive energy dissipation system does not require additional mass for the damping system because the boundary wall mass of the building was used as a damper mass. The multi-mode approach was applied to determine the location and design parameters of the dampers. The dampers were installed based on the maximum amplitude of modes. To optimize the damper parameters, the multi-objective optimization Response Surface Methodology was used, with frequency response and maximum displacement as the objective functions. The obtained structural responses under different earthquake forces demonstrated that the MWD is one of the most capable tools for reducing the responses of multi-storied buildings, and this system can be practically used for new and existing building structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.61 no.4
• /
• pp.453-461
• /
• 2017

This paper presents the series multiple tuned mass dampers (STMDs) to suppress the resonant vibrations of railway bridges under the passage of high-speed trains (HSTs). A STMD device consisting of two spring-mass-damper units connected each other in series is installed on the bridge. In solution, bridge is modeled as a simply-supported Euler-Bernoulli beam with constant cross-section, and vehicle is simulated as a series of moving forces with constant speed. By the assumed mode method, the governing equations of motion of the beam-TMD device coupled system traversed by a moving train are obtained. The optimum values for the parameters of the STMD device are obtained for the criterion based on the minimization of the maximum dynamic displacement of the beam at its midspan. Single TMD and multiple TMDs in parallel are also considered for demonstration of the STMD device's performance. The results show that STMDs are effective in bridge vibration suppression and robust to parameters' change in the main system and the absorber itself.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.545-558
• /
• 2020

A design method of a Multiple Tuned Mass Damper (MTMD) system is presented for wind induced vibration control of a cable-supported roof structure. Modal contribution analysis is carried out to determine the dominating modes of the structure for the MTMD design. Two MTMD systems are developed for two most dominating modes. Each MTMD system is composed of multiple TMDs with small masses spread at multiple locations with large responses in the corresponding mode. Frequencies of TMDs are distributed uniformly within a range around the dominating frequencies of the roof structure to enhance the robustness of the MTMD system against uncertainties of structural frequencies. Parameter optimizations are carried out by minimizing objective functions regarding the structural responses, TMD strokes, robustness and mass cost. Two optimization approaches are used: Single Objective Approach (SOA) using Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) with multi-start method and Multi-Objective Approach (MOA) using Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The computation efficiency of the MOA is found to be superior to the SOA with consistent optimization results. A Pareto optimal front is obtained regarding the control performance and the total weight of the TMDs, from which several specific design options are proposed. The final design may be selected based on the Pareto optimal front and other engineering factors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.73 no.2
• /
• pp.133-141
• /
• 2020

This paper presents the applicability of series tuned mass dampers (STMDs) to reduce the multiple resonant responses of continuous railway bridges under high-speed train. The bridge is modeled by two-span Bernoulli-Euler beam with uniform cross-section, and a STMD device consisting of two TMD units installed on the bridge to reduce its multiple resonant vibrations. The system is assumed to be under the action of a high-speed train passage which is modeled as a series of moving forces. Sequential Programming Technique (SQP) is carried out to find the optimal parameters of the STMD that minimizes the maximum peak responses of the bridge. Comparisons with the results available in the literature are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of STMD system in reducing the multiple resonant responses of the continuous railway bridges under high-speed trains.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.3 no.5
• /
• pp.497-509
• /
• 1995

Effectiveness of multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) in suppressing the dynamic response of base excited structure for first mode vibration is investigated. The effectiveness of the MTMD is expressed by the ratio of the root mean square (RMS) displacement of the structure with MTMD to corresponding displacement without MTMD. The frequency content of base excitation is modelled as a broad-band stationary random process. The MTMD's with uniformly distributed natural frequencies are considered for this purpose. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the fundamental characteristics of the MTMD's and the effect of important parameters on the effectiveness of the MTMD's. The parameters include: the fundamental characteristics of the MTMD system such as damping, mass ratio, total number of MTMD, tuning frequency ratio, frequency spacing of the dampers and frequency content of the base excitation. It has been shown that MTMD can be more effective and more robust than a single TMD with equal mass and damping ratio.