• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.319-341
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• 2014

A family of smart tuned mass dampers (STMDs) with variable frequency and damping properties is analyzed under harmonic excitations and ground motions. Two types of STMDs are studied: one is realized by a semi-active independently variable stiffness (SAIVS) device and the other is realized by a pendulum with an adjustable length. Based on the feedback signal, the angle of the SAIVS device or the length of the pendulum is adjusted by using a servomotor such that the frequency of the STMD matches the dominant excitation frequency in real-time. Closed-form solutions are derived for the two types of STMDs under harmonic excitations and ground motions. Results indicate that a small damping ratio (zero damping is the best theoretically) and an appropriate mass ratio can produce significant reduction when compared to the case with no tuned mass damper. Experiments are conducted to verify the theoretical result of the smart pendulum TMD (SPTMD). Frequency tuning of the SPTMD is implemented through tracking and analyzing the signal of the excitation using a short time Fourier transformation (STFT) based control algorithm. It is found that the theoretical model can predict the structural responses well. Both the SAIVS STMD and the SPTMD can significantly attenuate the structural responses and outperform the conventional passive TMDs.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 2019

Tall buildings are prone to wind-induced vibrations due to their slenderness whereby peak structural accelerations may be higher than the recommended maximum value. The common countermeasure is the installation of a tuned mass damper (TMD) near the highest occupied floor. Due to the extremely large modal mass of tall buildings and because of the narrow to broad band type of wind excitation the TMD mass may become inacceptable large - in extreme cases up to 2000 metric tons. It is therefore a need to develop more efficient TMD concepts which provide the same damping to the building but with reduced mass. The adaptive TMD concept described in this paper represents a solution to this problem. Frequency and damping of the adaptive TMD are controlled in real-time by semi-active oil dampers according to the actual structural acceleration. The resulting enhanced TMD efficiency allows reducing its mass by up to 20% compared to the classical passive TMD. The adaptive TMD system is fully fail-safe thanks to a smart valve system of the semi-active oil dampers. In contrast to active TMD solutions the adaptive TMD is unconditionally stable and its power consumption on the order of 1 kW is negligible small as controllable oil dampers are semi-active devices. The adaptive TMD with reduced mass, stable behavior and lowest power consumption is therefore a preferable and cost saving damping tool for tall buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.21-36
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• 2023

Structural vibrations generated by earthquakes and wind loads can be controlled by varying the structural parameters such as mass, stiffness, damping ratio, and geometry and providing a certain amount of passive or active reaction forces. A Double-Tuned Mass Dampers (DTMDs) system, which is simple and more effective than the conventional single tuned mass damper (TMD) system for vibration mitigation is presented. Two TMDs tuned to the first two natural frequencies were used to control vibrations. Experimental investigations were carried out on a three degrees-of-freedom frame model to investigate the effectiveness of DTMDs systems in controlling displacements, accelerations, and base shear. Numerical models were developed and validated against the experimental results. The validation showed a good match between the experimental and numerical results. The validated model was employed to investigate the behavior of a five degrees-of-freedom shear building structure, wherein mass dampers with different mass ratios were considered. The effectiveness of the DTMDs system was investigated for harmonic, seismic, and white noise base excitations. The proposed system was capable of significantly reducing the story displacements, accelerations, and base shears at the first and second natural frequencies, as compared to conventional single TMD.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.239-248
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• 2017

Friction dampers are displacement dependent energy dissipation devices which dissipate earthquake energy through friction mechanism and widely used in improving the seismic behavior of new structures and rehabilitation of existing structures. In this paper, the cyclic behavior of a friction damper with different friction materials is investigated through experimental tests under cyclic loading. The damper is made of steel plates, friction pads, preloaded bolts and hard washers. The paper aims at investigating the hysteretic behavior of three friction materials under cyclic loading to be utilized in friction damper. The tested friction materials are: powder lining, super lining and metal lining. The experimental results are studied according to FEMA-356 acceptance criteria and the most appropriate friction material is selected by comparing all friction materials results.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2009

This study is about roll characteristics evaluation to show the advantage of using MR(magneto-rheological) dampers for steering of a SUV(sports utility vehicle). Roll characteristics is very important to observe the roll-propensity of the SUV. ADAMS/Car program was used to simulate the basic steering motion, using 63 D.O.F. vehicle model. Sky-Hook and Ground-Hook control algorithms were used as a semi-active suspension system controller. The roll characteristics from the steering motion were compared between the simulation results from the semi-active suspension system and the passive suspension system.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.307-326
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• 2010

This paper is concerned with the optimal seismic design of added viscous dampers in yielding plane frames. The total added damping is minimized for allowable values of local performance indices under the excitation of an ensemble of ground motions in both regular and irregular structures. The local performance indices are taken as the maximal inter-story drift of each story and/or the normalized hysteretic energy dissipated at each of the plastic hinges. Gradients of the constraints with respect to the design variables (damping coefficients) are derived, via optimal control theory, to enable an efficient first order optimization scheme to be used for the solution of the problem. An example of a ten story three bay frame is presented. This example reveals the following 'fully stressed characteristics' of the optimal solution: damping is assigned only to stories for which the local performance index has reached the allowable value. This may enable the application of efficient and practical analysis/redesign type methods for the optimal design of viscous dampers in yielding plane frames.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.495-502
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• 2006

Seismic performance of semi-active fuzzy control algorithm to operate MR dampers for coupling adjacent building is investigated in this paper. In the proposed semi-active control technique, the fuzzy logic is used as a method to adjust input voltage to MR damper. In order to validate control performance of proposed technique, the seismic performance of the semi-active fuzzy control system is compared with that of passive control system where the input voltage to MR damper is set to display maximum damping force. The simulated results show that the semi-active fuzzy control technique effectively regulates the trade-off existing between seismic responses of two buildings subject to various earthquake excitations.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.95-110
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• 2019

The semi-active impact damper (SAID) is proposed to improve the damping efficiency of traditional passive impact dampers. In order to investigate its damping mechanism and vibration control effects on realistic engineering structures, a 20-story nonlinear benchmark building is used as the main structure. The studies on system parameters, including the mass ratio, damping ratio, rigid coefficient, and the intensity of excitation are carried out, and their effects both on linear and nonlinear indexes are evaluated. The damping mechanism is herein further investigated and some suggestions for the design in high-rise buildings are also proposed. To validate the superiority of SAID, an optimal passive particle impact damper ($PID_{opt}$) is also investigated as a control group, in which the parameters of the SAID remain the same, and the optimal parameters of the $PID_{opt}$ are designed by differential evolution algorithm based on a reduced-order model. The numerical simulation shows that the SAID has better control effects than that of the optimized passive particle impact damper, not only for linear indexes (e.g., root mean square response), but also for nonlinear indexes (e.g., component energy consumption and hinge joint curvature).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.347-359
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• 2020

The Mega-Sub Controlled Structure System (MSCSS), an innovative vibration passive control system for building structures, is improved by adding lead rubber bearings (LRBs) on top of the substructure. For the new system, a genetic algorithm is used to optimize the dynamic parameters and distributions of dampers and LRBs. The program uses various seismic performance indicators as optimization objectives, and corresponding results are compared. It is found that the optimization procedure for maximizing the energy dissipation ratio yields the best solutions, and optimized models have consistent seismic performances under different earthquakes. Seismic performances of optimized MSCSS models with and without LRBs, as well as the traditional Mega-Sub Structure model, are evaluated and compared under El Centro wave, Taft wave and 20 other artificial waves. In both elastic and plastic analysis, the model with LRBs shows significantly smaller story drift and horizontal acceleration than those of the other two models, and fewer plastic hinges are developed during severe earthquakes. Energy analysis also shows that LRBs installed in proper locations increase the deformation and energy dissipation of dampers, thereby significantly reduce the kinetic, potential, and hysteretic energy in the structure. However, LRBs do not have to be mounted on all the additional columns. It is also demonstrated that LRBs at unfavorable locations can decrease the energy dissipation for dampers. After LRBs are installed, the optimal damping coefficient and the optimal damping exponent of dampers are reduced to produce the best damping effect.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.15-42
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• 2024

A flexible-base coupled-two-beam (CTB) discrete model with equivalent tuned mass dampers is used to assess the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) and different types of lateral resisting systems on the design of passive dynamic absorbers (PDAs) under the action of along-wind and across-wind loads due to vortex shedding. A total of five different PDAs are considered in this study: (1) tuned mass damper (TMD), (2) circular tuned sloshing damper (C-TSD), (3) rectangular tuned sloshing damper (R-TSD), (4) two-way liquid damper (TWLD) and (5) pendulum tuned mass damper (PTMD). By modifying the non-dimensional lateral stiffness ratio, the CTB model can consider lateral deformations varying from those of a flexural cantilever beam to those of a shear cantilever beam. The Monte Carlo simulation method was used to generate along-wind and across-wind loads correlated along the height of a real shear wall-frame building, which has similar fundamental periods of vibration and different modes of lateral deformation in the xz and yz planes, respectively. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on the building to identify its real lateral behavior and thus choose the most suitable parameters for the CTB model. Both alongwind and across-wind responses of the 144-meter-tall building were computed considering four soil types (hard rock, dense soil, stiff soil and soft soil) and a single PDA on its top, that is, 96 time-history analyses were carried out to assess the effect of SSI and lateral resisting system on the PDAs design. Based on the parametric analyses, the response significantly increases as the soil flexibility increases for both type of lateral wind loads, particularly for flexural-type deformations. The results show a great effectiveness of PDAs in controlling across-wind peak displacements and both along-wind and across-wind RMS accelerations, on the contrary, PDAs were ineffective in controlling along-wind peak displacements on all soil types and different kind of lateral deformation. Generally speaking, the maximum possible value of the PDA mass efficiency index increases as the soil flexibility increases, on the contrary, it decreases as the non-dimensional lateral stiffness ratio of the building increases; therefore, there is a significant increase of the vibration control effectiveness of PDAs for lateral flexural-type deformations on soft soils.