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Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures

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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 May 2022) | Viewed by 21514

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Felix Weber

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Guest Editor

Maurer Switzerland GmbH, 8118 Pfaffhausen, Switzerland
Interests: damping; earthquake engineering; isolation; semi-active control; structural control; tuned mass damper; vibration; vibration absorber
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of efficient vibration damping, vibration compensation and vibration isolation systems is highly relevant considering the trend towards aesthetic designs of civil engineering structures and considering the hazardeous impacts of natural disasters such as strong earthquakes or extreme weather conditions due to climate changes. As a result of the various excitation mechanisms, huge variety of civil engineering structures and different vibration limits the according field of structural protection systems is wide. To encompass this wide field of vibration problems with associated solution approaches the scope of this Special Issue is wide as well.

In this Special Issue, we therefore want to address recent advances in the following topics (list not exhaustive):

Analysis of linear and nonlinear structural vibrations
Design and material aspects of vibration dampers, compensators and isolators
Development of new vibration dampers, compensators and isolators
Latest developments in earthquake engineering
Latest developments in wind engineering
Linear and nonlinear damping, compensation and isolation of structural vibrations of single and multi degree of freedom systems
Monitoring of structural vibrations, real-time identification of structural parameters, smart monitoring systems
Passive, adaptive and real-time controlled, i.e. active and semi-active, vibration damping, compensation and isolation systems
Probabilistic and risk-based designs of vibration damping, compensation and isolation systems
Soil-structure interaction

Submissions are invited for both original research and review articles. Contributions with experiementally validated vibration damping, compensation and isolation systems and with real vibration data are highly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Felix Weber
Guest Editor

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Keywords

damper
earthquake engineering
friction damping
hysteretic damping
isolator
monitoring
negative stiffness
structural control
strucural dynamics
tuned mass damper
vibration absorber
wind engineering

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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2 pages, 175 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Special Issue on “Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures”

by Felix Weber

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(2), 965; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13020965 - 11 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 728

Abstract

Civil engineering structures may vibrate due to different sources of excitations such as earthquakes, wind, traffic, humans, etc [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

14 pages, 3588 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mitigation of Structural Vibrations of MDOF Oscillators by Modal Coupling Due to Hysteretic Dampers

by Paolo Casini and Fabrizio Vestroni

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(19), 10079; https://doi.org/10.3390/app121910079 - 07 Oct 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1346

Abstract

In civil engineering, structural elements characterized by hysteresis are often encountered, such as materials with limited elastic fields, microsliding friction and elastomeric absorbers. Hysteretic nonlinearities produce a wide variety of dynamical phenomena, such as significant modal coupling, bifurcations and superabundant modes. This paper investigates nonlinear modal interactions in the dynamic response of a two-degree-of-freedom system (2DOF) with hysteretic elements. These phenomena are notably important in internal resonance conditions, where modal interactions produce strong modifications in the response with possible beneficial effects. In specific conditions, the transfer of energy between the two modes leads to a notable reduction in the maximum response amplitude; the exploitation of this feature to achieve vibration mitigation of the forced response is the main goal of the paper. Two configurations are investigated: the hysteretic element at the top (vibration damper) and the hysteretic element at the base (isolator). In both cases, several internal resonance conditions occur since, by increasing the excitation intensity, the frequencies of the hysteretic system change, as well as their ratio. Qualitative similar results are obtained, characterized by a transfer of energy between the two modes. For both configurations, the usefulness of exploiting these nonlinear phenomena in vibration mitigation has been shown. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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24 pages, 3078 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Investigating the Vibration Mitigation Efficiency of Tuned Sloshing Dampers Using a Two-Fluid CFD Approach

by Máté Péntek, Andreas Riedl, Kai-Uwe Bletzinger and Felix Weber

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(14), 7033; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12147033 - 12 Jul 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1458

Abstract

The efficiency of a Tuned Sloshing Damper (TSD) when mitigating wind-induced structural vibrations is investigated. We assessed the performance in terms of peak structural displacements and accelerations, compared to that of the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD). One load scenario considers oncoming gusts due to natural turbulence, whereas the other assumes predominant vortex shedding at a low turbulence intensity. The known optimum tuning rules for TSDs and TMDs were adopted. We combined numerical models for fluids and structures to simulate the dynamic effects caused by wind loading. A two-fluid Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach was used for the realistic simulation of the TSD. The interaction between the flow, the structural behavior and the added devices was captured. All of these computational methods and respective models represent the necessary components of a modular and flexible simulation environment. The study demonstrates that this workflow is suited to model the inclusion of TSDs and TMDs, as well as to capture the effect of transient wind at full scale. We specifically used it to quantify the efficiency of added dampers. The process highlights challenges in properly tuning a TSD and its reduced efficiency compared to that of a TMD. Such an outcome is attributed to the water mass and potential added damping only being partially activated. The computational framework promises the ability to improve such designs by enabling numerical optimization for better efficiency. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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15 pages, 7434 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance of Numerically Optimized Tuned Mass Damper with Inerter (TMDI)

by Felix Weber, Fredrik Borchsenius, Johann Distl and Christian Braun

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(12), 6204; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12126204 - 18 Jun 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1876

Abstract

In recent years, the Tuned Mass Damper with inerter (TMDI) has received significant attention. The inerter is defined to exert a force that is in proportion to the relative acceleration of the two inerter terminals. Here, two TMDI topologies are investigated. The conventional topology is given by the inerter being in parallel to the spring and viscous damper of the TMDI. The other topology is the serial arrangement of spring, inerter and viscous damper being in parallel to the stiffness of the mass spring oscillator of the TMDI. While the first topology intends to increase the inertial force of the TMDI, the second topology aims at producing an additional degree of freedom. The considered TMDI concepts are simulated for harmonic and random excitations, with parameters set according to those described in the literature and with numerically optimized parameters which minimize the primary structure displacement response. The classical TMD is used as a benchmark. The findings are twofold. The conventional TMDI with typical inertance ratio of 1% and the very small value of 0.02% performs significantly worse than the classical TMD with the same mass ratio. In contrast, the TMDI with an additional degree of freedom can improve the mitigation of the primary structure if the inertance ratio is set very small and if the TMDI parameters are numerically optimized. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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22 pages, 2921 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A Novel Single Tube Semi-Active Tuned Liquid Gas Damper for Suppressing Horizontal Vibrations of Tower-like Structures

by Michael Reiterer and Janez Schellander

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(7), 3301; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12073301 - 24 Mar 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1799

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel single tube semi-active tuned liquid gas damper (SA-TLGD) for suppressing horizontal vibrations of tower-like structures and to study its damping effectiveness. The main difference to the well-known state-of-the-art tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) is the special geometric shape of the developed SA-TLGD. Contrary to the TLCD, the presented SA-TLGD only consists of a single horizontal tube that is partially filled with water. A large deformable elastic membrane with neglectable stiffness is used as the interface between the liquid and the air. Both ends of the horizontal tube are sealed and the resulting gas spring is used as the restoring force and frequency tuning parameter, respectively. The developed SA-TLGD is a semi-active vibration damping device, where its natural frequency and magnitude of energy dissipation can be re-adjusted during operation. Due to the lack of any vertical tube parts, this new type of vibration absorber requires significantly less installation space compared to the classical TLCDs. The equations of motion of the SA-TLGD and the coupled main system are derived by the application of conservation of momentum. The procedure of optimal tuning of the SA-TLGD is presented, and computational numerical studies are performed to demonstrate the damper effectiveness. It is shown that the application of the developed SA-TLGD provides a large reduction in the maximum horizontal forced vibration amplitudes of tower like-structures and that its semi-active functionality enables the possibility of re-adjustment any time during the operation life of the structure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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21 pages, 14932 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development of Vibration Control Structure on Suspended Ceiling Using Pulley Mechanism

by Ryo Majima, Shigeki Sakai and Taiki Saito

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 3069; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12063069 - 17 Mar 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4446

Abstract

A suspended ceiling system (SCS) is one of the most fragile and non-structural elements during earthquakes. However, effective seismic protection technologies for enhancing the suspended ceiling system have not been developed other than the steel bracing system. An innovative passive vibration control system is proposed in this paper, which equipped a damper-employed pulley amplification mechanism into the indirect suspended ceiling system, named the pulley–damper ceiling system (PDCS). Theoretical formulation and the detailed information on the system were presented first. In addition, a new rotational damper composition consisting of a non-linear viscous damper was developed to follow the large wire-cable stroke. Six types of the full-scale ceiling specimens of a 15.6-square meter area with different configurations were constructed for the preliminary experiments to evaluate the seismic performance and feasibility of PDCS under simulated earthquake motions. The comparative results of the shake table test demonstrated that the application of PDCS is capable of controlling both displacement and acceleration of the ceiling panels. This study also presents the nonlinear time history analyses by modeling a wire-cable as an equivalent truss element to transmit the relative displacement of the ceiling system to the damper. The analytical model accurately simulated the dynamic behavior of PDCS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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21 pages, 37475 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of MetaFoundation on the Seismic Responses of Liquid Storage Tanks

by Mostafa Farajian, Mohammad Iman Khodakarami and Pejman Sharafi

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(5), 2514; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12052514 - 28 Feb 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1617

Abstract

Cylindrical liquid storage tanks are vital lifeline structures, playing a critical role in industry and human life. Damages to these structures during previous earthquakes indicate their vulnerability against seismic events. A novel strategy to reduce the seismic demands in the structures is the use of metamaterials, being periodically placed in the foundation, called MetaFoundation (MF). The periodic configuration of metamaterials can create a stop band, leading to a decrease in wave propagation in the foundation. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of MF on the dynamic behaviour of liquid storage tanks. To that end, the governing equations of motion of the liquid storage tank equipped with MF are derived and solved in the time domain to obtain the time history of the responses under a set of ground motions. Then, the peak responses of tanks, mounted on MF, are compared with the corresponding responses in the fixed base condition. Besides, a parametric study is performed to assess the effect of the predominant frequency of earthquakes, the number of layers of metamaterials, the thickness of soft material, and the damping ratios of soft material on the performance of the MF. The obtained results indicate that the MF improves the dynamic behaviour of the squat tank, in which the mean ratio of responses using MF to the ones in the fixed base conditions equals 0.551 for impulsive displacement, overturning moment, and base shear. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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18 pages, 4365 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Semi-Active Cable Damping to Compensate for Damping Losses Due to Reduced Cable Motion Close to Cable Anchor

by Felix Weber, Simon Spensberger, Florian Obholzer, Johann Distl and Christian Braun

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(4), 1909; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12041909 - 11 Feb 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1267

Abstract

The relative motion of transverse cable dampers is smaller than predicted by the taut string model because of the effects of bending stiffness and fixed support conditions. As a result of the reduced damper motion, the dissipated energy per cycle is reduced as well, which may explain why damping measurements on real stay cables with transverse dampers often show lower cable damping ratios than expected from the taut string theory. To compensate for the reduced damper motion and damper efficiency, respectively, a semi-active cable damper is proposed. The controllable damper is realized by a hydraulic oil damper with real-time controlled bypass valve whereby the resulting damper force is purely dissipative. The proposed control law is clipped viscous damping with negative stiffness. The viscous coefficient is adjusted in real time to the actual frequency of vibration to generate optimum modal damping while the negative stiffness component partially compensates for the reduced damper motion due to the flexural rigidity and fixed support conditions of the cable. The measurements of the prototype semi-active hydraulic damper are used to derive a precise model of the semi-active damper force including the control force constraints due to the fully open and fully closed bypass valve. This model is used to compute the cable damping ratios of the first four cable modes, for typical damper positions, for a taut string model and for a cable model with flexural rigidity and fixed supported ends. The obtained cable damping ratios are compared to those resulting from the passive linear viscous damper being optimized to the first four cable modes. The results demonstrate that the proposed semi-active cable damper with the consideration of the minimum and maximum control force constraints significantly enhances the cable damping of the first four modes compared to the linear viscous damper. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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22 pages, 6781 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Vertical Seismic Isolation Device for Three-Dimensional Seismic Isolation of Nuclear Power Plant Equipment—Case Study

by Gyeong-Hoi Koo, Jin-Young Jung, Jong-Keun Hwang, Tae-Myung Shin and Min-Seok Lee

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(1), 320; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12010320 - 29 Dec 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2002

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a vertical seismic isolation device essential for the three-dimensional seismic isolation design of nuclear power plant equipment. The vertical seismic isolation device in this study has a concept that can be integrally combined with a conventional laminated rubber bearing, a horizontal seismic isolator with a design vertical load of 10 kN. To develop the vertical seismic isolation device, the vertical spring and the seismic energy dissipation device capable of limiting the vertical displacement of the spring were designed and their performances were verified through actual tests. In this study, the target elevation of the floor is 136 ft, where safety-related nuclear equipment, such as cabinet and remote shutdown console, etc., is installed. The sensitivity studies were carried out to investigate the optimal design vertical isolation frequencies for the target building elevation. Based on the results of the sensitivity study, a disc spring and a helical coil spring were selected for the vertical stiffness design, and the steel damper was selected for the seismic energy dissipation, and their performance characteristics were tested to confirm the design performance. For the steel damper, three types were designed and their energy dissipation characteristics by hysteretic behavior were confirmed by the inelastic finite element analyses and the tests in static fully reversed cyclic conditions. Through the study of the vertical seismic isolation device, it was found that 2.5 Hz~3.0 Hz is appropriate for the optimal design vertical isolation. With results of the vertical seismic isolation performance analysis, the appropriate number of steel dampers are proposed to limit the vertical seismic displacement of the spring within the static displacement range by the design vertical load. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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24 pages, 9462 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Experimental Study on the Mechanical Properties of a High Damping Rubber Bearing with Low Shape Factor

by Zhenyuan Gu, Yahui Lei, Wangping Qian, Ziru Xiang, Fangzheng Hao and Yi Wang

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(21), 10059; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112110059 - 27 Oct 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2618

Abstract

A high damping rubber bearing (HDRB) is widely utilized in base-isolation structures due to its good energy dissipation capacity and environmentally friendly properties; however, it is incapable of isolating the vertical vibration caused by earthquakes and subways effectively. Thick rubber bearings with a low shape factor have become one of the important vertical isolation forms. This paper provides an experimental comparative study on high damping rubber bearings with low shape factor (HDRB-LSF), thick lead–rubber bearings (TLRB), and lead–rubber bearings (LRB). The abilities of the bearing and energy dissipation of the above bearings are analyzed contrastively considering the influence of vertical pressure, loading frequency, shear strain, and pre-pressure. Firstly, the HDRB-LSF, TLRB, and LRB are designed according to the Chinese Code for seismic design of buildings. Secondly, cyclic vertical compression tests and horizontal shear tests, as well as their correlation tests, are conducted, respectively. The vibrational characteristics and hysteresis feature of these three bearings are critically compared. Thirdly, a corrected calculation of vertical stiffness for the thick rubber bearings is proposed based on the experimental data to provide a more accurate and realistic tool measuring the vertical mechanical properties of rubber bearings. The test results proved that the HDRB-LSF has the most advanced performance of the three bearings. For the fatigue property, the hysteresis curves of the HDRB-LSF along with TLRB are plump both horizontally and vertically, thus providing a good energy dissipation effect. Regarding vertical stiffness, results from different loading cases show that the designed HDRB-LSF possesses a better vertical isolation effect and preferable environmental protection than LRB, a larger bearing capacity, and, similarly, a more environmentally friendly property than TLRB. Hence, it can avoid the unfavorable resonance effect caused by vertical periodic coupling within the structure. All the experimental data find that the proposed corrected equation can calculate the vertical stiffness of bearings with a higher accuracy. This paper presents the results of an analytical, parametric study that aimed to further explore the low shape factor concepts of rubber bearings applied in three-dimensional isolation for building structures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Efficient Damping and Isolation Systems for Civil Structures)

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