ab-_et_al-1994-earthquake_engineering.pdfVIP

EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, VOL. 23,813-835 (1994) DYNAMIC CHARACTERIZATION OF MULTIPLE TUNED MASS DAMPERS AND SOME DESIGN FORMULAS MASATO ABE* Department of Civil Engineering, Northwestern University,Evanston, IL 60208, USA AND YOZO FUJINO Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1.Bunkyou-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan SUMMARY Multiple Tuned Mass Dampers (MTMD) consist of a large number of small oscillators with natural frequencies distributed around the natural frequency of a controlled mode of the structure. In the present paper, the modal characteristicsand efficiencyof the MTMD are studied analytically. Perturbation solutionsfor the modal properties of the MTMD-structure system are obtained and the modal characteristicsare discussed. An explicit formula to estimate the effectiveness of the MTMD subjectedto harmonic forces is also derived. It is shown that the MTMD is efficient when at least one of the oscillatorsis strongly coupled with the structure in any mode. Based on this observation, a critical bandwidth of the natural frequencies of the MTMD to make the system multiply tuned is derived in a simple form, and furthermore a robustness criterionfor the frequency tuning under a given bandwidth is proposed. It is shown that, when properly designed, the MTMD can be much more stable (robust) than a conventionalsingle TMD while maintaining more or less the same efficiency.Numerical studies verify the accuracy of the perturbation solutions and the proposed formulas. INTRODUCTION The Tuned Mass Damper (TMD)has many a