Abstract:
Current trends in construction industry demands taller and lighter structures, which are also
more flexible and having quite low damping value. This increases failure possibilities and
also problems from serviceability point of view due to the vibration of structure. There are
some effective techniques available to minimize the vibration of structures; Tuned Liquid
Damper (TLD) is one of the techniques available to minimize the vibration of the structure.
Tuned Liquid Damper is the most economically and environmentally sustainable system,
because no power source is required for its operation, free of maintenance, ease of frequency
tuning and reduction of motion in two directions simultaneously.
The objective of this research was to prepare optimum design of TLD for vibration control of
frame structures under seismic excitation. Analytical analysis was made to investigate the
response of the frame structure models fitted with a TLD. Time history analysis was carried
out in SAP2000 using the nonlinear transient dynamic analysis. A standard multi-degree of
freedom system was investigated to evaluate TLD protection efficiency in case of excitation
by using rectangular tanker as liquid damper. To prepare optimum design for TLD it was
needed to optimize analytically the passive parameters of the TLD.
A total of five loading conditions were applied at the base of the structure. For optimization
design of the damper parametric studies were done using dynamic parameters such as depth
ratio and mass ratio. The effectiveness of the TLD was calculated in terms of percentage of
reduction of displacements and peak acceleration of the structure.
The results of the study show that TLDs are effective in reducing structural vibrations and
the highest structural response reduction has been found from optimum design of the damper
which is 48.72% reduction of the structural response. The optimum water depth ratio and
mass ratio have found to be 0.122 and 3.5% respectively. From this study, it can be
concluded that properly designed TLD with optimum design parameters are considered to be
very effective device to reduce the structural response. Further works are required to achieve
optimum design of the damper to better protect building structures.
