The Design of a Tuned Mass Damper as a Vibration Absorber

Abstract

The protection of civil structures, including their material contents andhuman occupants, is without doubt a world-wide priority of most serious currentresearch. Such protection may range from reliable operation and comfort, on onehand, to serviceability on the other. Examples of such structures which leap toone’s mind include buildings, towers, and bridges. In like manner, events whichcause the need for such protective measures are environmental like earthquakesand winds, or moving loads like cars and pedestrians in the case of bridges. Theearthquake hazard is translated in severe vibrations for the structural systems. Inorder to handle this world wide problem auxiliary damping devices is added toabsorb those vibrations. One of the early used damping devices is the Tuned MassDamper (TMD) which is a passive system in that it absorbs the structural responsewithout adding an external control signal. In this work a case study of three storiesbuilding model excited by a simulated earthquake hazard is investigated versus theresponse of the same building supplied by a TMD.