Inerter-based tuned liquid column damper for seismic vibration control of a single-degree-of-freedom structure

The study investigates the effectiveness of a novel tuned liquid column damper-inerter (TLCDI) for the seismic vibration control of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure. First, a mathematical model of the TLCDI-equipped SDOF structure under the condition of earthquake excitation is developed. Based on the equivalent linearization method, closed-form solutions of the model under a white-noise excitation are derived and verified by using a numerical method. Subsequently, a parametric optimization of the TLCDI is performed under white-noise excitation with peak relative displacement and absolute acceleration responses of the primary structure as the two objectives. The optimal parameters are used to assess the mitigation effects of the TLCDI in comparison with those of a conventional tuned liquid column damper (TLCD). The results obtained by using the equivalent linearization method are consistent with those obtained from the numerical method under both white-noise and recorded earthquake excitations. The TLCDI achieves average reductions in peak displacement and acceleration responses of 54.2% and 64.9 %, respectively, which are 18.2% and 9.5 % larger than the reduction in the corresponding responses achieved by TLCD under various recorded earthquake excitations. Furthermore, the performance of the TLCDI is proven to be more robust than that of the TLCD under perturbation in the frequency ratio.