Experimental investigations of tuned liquid damper-structure interactions in resonance considering multiple parameters

Abstract

As structures are constructed more slender and taller, their vibrational response and its mitigation become challenging design considerations. Tuned liquid dampers (TLDs) are cost effective and low maintenance vibration absorbers that can be used to suppress structural vibrations. A TLD dissipates energy through liquid boundary layer friction, free surface contamination, and wave breaking. The dynamic characteristics of the TLD and its interaction with the structure is quite complex. In this paper, using a state-of-the-art experimental testing method, namely real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS), a comprehensive parametric study is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of TLDs. During RTHS the TLD response is obtained experimentally while the structure is modeled in a computer, thus capturing the TLD-structure interaction in real-time. By keeping the structure as the analytical model, RTHS offers a unique flexibility in which a wide range of influential parameters can be investigated without modifying the experimental setup. The parameters considered in this study with a wide range of variation include TLD/structure mass ratio, TLD/structure frequency ratio, and structural damping ratio. Additionally, the accuracy of FVM/FEM method that couples the finite volume and finite element approaches to model the liquid and solid domains to capture TLD- structure interaction is assessed experimentally. Results obtained in this study, will not only lead to a better understanding of TLDs and their interaction with the structures but also, contribute to the enhanced design of these devices which will in turn result in their wide-spread application.