An Experimental Investigation Into the Use of Particle Tuned Mass Damper

Abstract eng:
A particle tuned mass damper (PTMD) system is the combination of a traditional tuned mass damper (TMD) and a particle damper (PD). As we all know, if properly tuned, the TMD can effectively suppress excessive vibrations. However, the very narrow band of suppression frequency, ineffective reduction of non-stationary vibrations and sensitivity problems due to mistuning are the inherent limitations of a conventional TMD. On the other hand, particle damping technology dissipates the vibration energy by collisions and friction between particles or between particles and their container. The advantages of slight change to the primary structure, wide reduction frequency band and insensitivity to the environment changing make the particle damper preferable to the traditional passive control devices. It has been widely researched and applied in machinery and aviation engineering and the damping performance is favorable, but the research in civil engineering is just in the early stage. The novel PTMD can take advantage of them, leading to a potential effective damper device in civil engineering area. This paper presents a systematic experimental investigation of the effects of particle tuned mass damper attached to a multi degree of freedom (MDOF) system under different dynamic loads (real onsite earthquake excitations and artificial waves). A series of shaking table tests of a five story steel frame with the particle tuned mass damper system are carried out to evaluate the performance, and the influence of some parameters (auxiliary mass ratio, suspending length, gap clearance, mass ratio of particles to the total auxiliary mass, frequency characteristic and amplitude level of input) on the vibration control effects was investigated. It is shown that particle tuned mass damper have good performance in reducing the response of structures under dynamic loads. It can effectively control the fundamental mode of the MDOF primary system; however, the control effect for higher modes is variable. It is also shown that a certain mass ratio of particles leads to a better vibration attenuation effect. Properly designed particle tuned mass damper can effectively reduce the response of lightly damped MDOF primary system with a small weight.

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