Parametric study of tuned liquid damper performance to control a benchmark steel building under seismic loads

Abstract

One of the aims of structural engineers is to improve the behavior of structures and reducing their responses under dynamic lateral loads. The structural control systems are advanced techniques to reduce the structural responses against vibration, and Tuned Liquid Damper (TLD) is a well-established tool for the control of structures. In this study, the effect and behavior of TLD under 7 far-field earthquakes and 7 near-field earthquakes was investigated in ANSYS software. To assess the performance of TLD on the control of structural responses including displacement, acceleration, and velocity, the effect of four different design parameters i.e., tank length, water height, water ratio, and mass ratio (with 27 different designed alternatives based on closed-form relationships proposed in the literature) were studied. The results showed that when the water ratio and the mass ratio of the cubical container are equal to 0.375 and 5 percent respectively, The TLD had the best performance under near-fault records. Also, the designed TLD with a 5 percent mass ratio and 0.125 water ratio outperforms other designed alternatives under far-fault records. In general, and among the considered alternatives, the performance of the damper with a higher mass ratio improves all studied performance criteria. Also, the well-designed TLD could reduce the acceleration better than velocity, and velocity better than displacement.