Experimental validation, analytical investigation, and design method of tuned mass damper‐clutching inerter for robust control of structures

Abstract

AbstractInerters have significantly uplifted the cost‐effectiveness of structural control technologies. A recently proposed tuned mass damper‐clutching inerter (TMDCI) takes advantage of both mass amplification effect and energy absorption capacity of inerter which is more effective and practical than its predecessors. However, the existing study only provided numerical demonstrations while experimental evidence and analytical explanation are still lacking for in‐depth understanding of the dynamic properties and working principles of TMDCIs. In this study, the mathematical descriptions of TMDCIs are first developed and experimentally validated on a three‐story structure. The validated model is then used to analyze the influences of inerter arrangement and total inertance in inerter‐enhanced devices. With an appropriate inerter arrangement and inertance, the TMDCI shows excellent control performance regardless of the changes in the structural frequency. The reason for the strong robustness of TMDCIs is then revealed via analytical investigation of standalone TMDCIs; the harmonically forced steady‐state responses manifest that the TMDCI can be linearized as equivalent tuned mass damper‐inerters with variable parameters whose natural frequency increases with the increase of excitation frequency. Based on the analytical findings, a design method with robustness consideration is subsequently proposed and draws satisfactory TMDCI designs for both single‐degree‐of‐freedom and multi‐degree‐of‐freedom structures. The designed TMDCI outperforms the comparable devices for both impulsive and seismic response mitigation. The study provides analytical insight into the control capacity of TMDCIs and lays the groundwork for practical design of TMDCIs as an effective and robust control strategy for engineering structures.