Tuned liquid column damper for suppressing pitching motion of structures

Tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) was developed mainly for the purpose of suppressing horizontal motion of structures. No relevant research has been found on the suppression of structural pitching vibration by using TLCD. This paper thus aims to investigate the possibility and effectiveness of applying TLCD to suppress pitching motion of structures. Both theoretical and experimental investigations are carried out. A mathematical model of tuned liquid column damper for suppressing structural pitching vibration is developed. The TLCD-structure interactive equations are derived and solved in both time domain and frequency domain. A series of free and forced vibration experiments with different TLCD configuration and parameters are performed. The influences of variable TLCD parameters on control effectiveness are determined. Numerical simulations corresponding to the experimental cases are carried out and compared with the experiments. A close agreement is obtained between the experimental results and theoretical simulation. This also verifies the developed theoretical model. Both theoretical and experimental studies show that TLCD can efficiently reduce structural pitching motion. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.