An experimental study on response control of structures using multiple tuned liquid dampers under dynamic loading

Abstract

In this paper, the performance of multiple tuned liquid damper (MTLD) has been investigated in mitigating the response of a structure under dynamic loading, i.e., harmonic excitation. For comparative study, the responses of single-tuned liquid damper (STLD) have also been considered. A set of experiments are conducted on a scaled model of steel-structure-STLD and MTLD systems to evaluate the performance of the respective TLD models under harmonic excitation. Several excitation frequency ratios (0.5–2.0) and depth ratios (0.05–0.30) are considered for this study. The effect of resonance as well as tuned condition (ωd/ωs = 1) on the structural response has also been noticed. The effectiveness of the STLD and MTLDs is evaluated based on the response reduction of the structure. It has been found that the structural responses of displacement and acceleration are reduced significantly due to the installation of STLD and MTLD to the structure, respectively. Therefore, from this experimental study, it can be concluded that a TLD can successfully mitigate the response of the structure, but MTLD is not significantly more effective than an STLD when the liquid sloshing in the TLD is large.