This study aims to discuss the feasibility of building mass damper (BMD) design in seismic control of building structures. In the BMD system, a floor or even a multi-story structure serves as a tuned absorber mass whose stiffness and damping can be respectively provided by elastomeric bearings and additional dampers. Therefore, the BMD design can essentially solve the inherent size limitation of the conventional tuned mass damper (TMD) design in which the additional tuned absorber mass is much smaller than the main structure mass. Two objective functions for TMD design, modal characteristic and dynamic response control methods respectively proposed by Sadek and Tsai, are introduced and used for the optimal design of BMD in this study. An analysis example of a 9-story structural frame with 3 bays shows that the adoption of BMD design can acceptably control the seismic responses of the main structure, about with a reduction of 30% to 50% in the acceleration and displacement responses compared to the bare frame. However, it is also disclosed that the larger the tuned absorber mass is, both the higher damping demand for BMD design and the less reduction of dynamic responses will be. In the future study, a more realistic three-dimensional structural model with a larger tuned absorber mass (e.g. a multi-story structure) will be considered to investigate the feasibility of BMD design in practice, and to discuss the effectiveness of BMD design in seismic protection of both the main structure and tuned mass structure.

This study aims to discuss the feasibility of building mass damper (BMD) design in seismic control of building structures. In the BMD system, a floor or even a multi-story structure serves as a tuned absorber mass whose stiffness and damping can be respectively provided by elastomeric bearings and additional dampers. Therefore, the BMD design can essentially solve the inherent size limitation of the conventional tuned mass damper (TMD) design in which the additional tuned absorber mass is much smaller than the main structure mass. Two objective functions for TMD design, modal characteristic and dynamic response control methods respectively proposed by Sadek and Tsai, are introduced and used for the optimal design of BMD in this study. An analysis example of a 9-story structural frame with 3 bays shows that the adoption of BMD design can acceptably control the seismic responses of the main structure, about with a reduction of 30% to 50% in the acceleration and displacement responses compared to the bare frame. However, it is also disclosed that the larger the tuned absorber mass is, both the higher damping demand for BMD design and the less reduction of dynamic responses will be. In the future study, a more realistic three-dimensional structural model with a larger tuned absorber mass (e.g. a multi-story structure) will be considered to investigate the feasibility of BMD design in practice, and to discuss the effectiveness of BMD design in seismic protection of both the main structure and tuned mass structure.

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