Bahavior of a 2-Mass Tuned-Mass-Damper (TMD) on a Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) System

Abstract

Seismic waves are very familiar, especially in our region. Thus, several engineering studies have been designed in order to limit the effects of these waves. The most familiar building applications rely on passive systems; however, such controls have shown several limitation when it comes to the different shapes, weights and constraints of such constructions. Thus, the purpose of this research is to study the response of a 2-Mass Tuned-Mass-Damper (TMD) on a single degree of freedom system and to compare it with the well-known 1-Mass TMD. The novelty of this work resides in the analysis of the effects of the 2-Mass TMD (placed in series or in parallel) on this system response when exposed to out-of-plan forces (e.g., wind, earthquake, blast waves, …) and the comparison between the delivered results with the ones obtained when using 1-Mass TMD control system. Once the 1-Mass and the 2-Mass TMD are been modeled, several simulations are executed while varying the building shape (short or tall buildings), the TMD weights ratios, the natural damping value of the buildings, the weights and the TMDs. The inputs of these simulations are five main earthquakes records which were classified as being the most harmful. The results show that the 2-Mass TMD operates better when considering short buildings whereas, for tall buildings, almost same results are obtained when comparing 1-Mass and 2-Mass TMD.