Tuned liquid dampers for multi-storey structure: numerical simulation using a partitioned FSI algorithm and experimental validation

Abstract

Wind-induced and earthquake-induced vibrations of structures such as super-tall towers and bridges can be efficaciously controlled by tuned liquid dampers (TLDs). This work presents a numerical simulation procedure to study the performance of TLDs–structure system through sigma (\( \sigma \))-transformation-based fluid–structure coupled solver. For this, a ‘C’-based computational code has been developed. The structural equations, which are coupled with the fluid equations in order to achieve the transfer of sloshing forces to structure for damping, are solved by the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method, while the fluid equations are solved using finite-difference-based sigma-transformed algorithm. Different iterative and error schemes are used to optimize the code for larger convergence rate and higher accuracy. For validation, a few experiments are conducted with a three-storey structure using TLDs arrangement. The present numerical results of response of TLD-installed structures match well with the experimental results. The minimum displacement of structure is observed when the resonance condition of the coupled system is achieved through proper tuning of TLDs. Since real-time excitations are random in nature, the performance study of TLDs under random excitation has also been carried out in which the Bretschneider spectrum is used to generate the random input wave.