City Research Online

Abstract

The tuned-mass-damper-inerter (TMDI) is a linear passive dynamic vibration absorber for the seismic protection of buildings. It couples the tuned-mass-damper (TMD), comprising an oscillatory secondary mass installed at top building floor via a spring and a damper, with an inerter device developing acceleration-dependent resisting force. In the TMDI configuration, the inerter connects the secondary mass to a lower than the top floor and recent work established that the more floors the inerter spans the more effective the TMDI becomes over the TMD. Recognizing that spanning more than one floors may not be practically appealing in low-to-midrise buildings due to increased space utilization requirements, this paper examines the seismic performance of TMDI-equipped buildings with inerter spanning only one (the top) floor upon softening the top floor. Numerical results pertaining to a linear 10-storey shear frame structure demonstrate that TMDIs spanning one floor (“-1” TMDI) are more effective than TMDIs spanning two floors (“-2” TMDI) upon top-floor softening by 80%. This is shown by considering “-1” and “-2” TMDIs with wide range of inertial properties optimally tuned to minimize penultimate floor deflection variance for coloured stationary excitation compatible with the Eurocode 8 response spectrum. Moreover, improved performance of “-1” TMDI with top floor softening compared to “-2” TMDI by 85% or more is found in terms of root-mean-square and peak values for penultimate floor deflection, storey drift, and acceleration by considering response history analyses to optimal TMDI-equipped structures for a suite of 7 ground motions spectrally matched to Eurocode 8 response spectrum. It is concluded that the herein proposed structural modification (top-floor softening) may improve significantly the seismic performance of TMDI-equipped building structures.

Publication Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	This is the accepted manuscript of a conference paper made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial International Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Subjects:	T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TH Building construction
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Engineering

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