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damage and still be safely functional. To maintain seismic performance in areas highly prone
to earthquakes (e.g. Zone IV and Zone V in India), the structures must be equipped with
mechanisms that can reduce its response to seismic excitation up to a certain margin.
Seismic Vibration Control, first proposed by Kobori, involves the technologies employed to
mitigate earthquake damage in the structures. Lot of research is being carried out in this
Motivation
widely practiced all over the globe. However there are few issues involved with this
approach, most obvious one is that the size of structural member increases as a result of
ductile design and consequently member stiffness also increases thereby attracting larger
earthquake forces. Also, there are some structures in which loss of functionality cannot be
permitted e.g. hospitals, monuments, bridges, defense buildings etc. In such cases it is
required to come up with a solution that altogether prevents the structure from going
excessive vibrations and thus restricting the earthquake damage to a minimum possible
limit.
Various methods adopted for seismic control can be distinguished primarily based on their
source of input energy and whether or not there is a feedback mechanism installed.
All these methods work on one of the five basic principles of seismic control-
1. Cutting off the input energy from the earthquake ground motion; examples:
2. Isolating the natural frequencies of the structures from the predominant seismic power
components; examples:
mechanisms which either increase the overall stiffness or damping of the structure. The
forces required to limit the amplitude of vibrations of the structure are generated as a
counter to earthquake and cannot be manually controlled at the time of event. However, an
operating frequency range can be specified under which their functioning is efficient.
It is currently one of the most commonly employed control scheme in USA and Japan. The
basic mechanism involves connecting the substructure and super-structure (or pier cap and
deck in case of a bridge) by means of a spring-damper system such that upon ground
motion excitation the super-structure can only undergo side sway motion while behaving
undergoing high amplitude oscillations during excitation. Flexibility of the base depends on
how high can be the frequency of applied vibrations and also the fundamental frequency of
the structure. More the base flexibility, higher will be the filtering of high frequency
components from the input motion. To prevent the flexible base from deflecting too much
from its central position which can cause malfunctioning of the installed bearings, the use of
dampers is necessary. So the overall transmission of ground motion to the super structure is
reduced while also keeping the bearings in a functional state. The choice of bearing depends
Initial stiffness of the bearing material which is required to avoid frequent vibration
1. Rubber bearings
2. Friction bearings
Rubber Bearings - Earlier rubber blocks were used which are unsuitable for earthquake
applications because they provide equal stiffness in all directions due to the weight coming
from the structure. Nowadays, laminated rubber bearings with steel plates are used which
provide flexibility in horizontal direction and high stiffness in vertical direction to prevent
rocking. Different types of rubber bearings are available nowadays with natural rubber
being the most suitable. The damping ratio of natural rubber is quite low in the range of
0.02-0.04 but it can be increased to 0.1-0.2 by the use of compound fillers (e.g. carbon
black). Kelly (2001) showed that for developing countries, steel plates can be replaced by
impart initial momentum causing large horizontal base displacement. In such cases,
Friction Bearings One of the main disadvantages of rubber bearings is that their
efficiency is affected by the frequency content of the ground motion. To overcome this
problem, friction based bearings were introduced. These systems have no inherent natural
period and hence are insensitive to variations in frequency content of the ground motion.
The damping force provided by these bearings depend on the vertical load coming from the
structure and therefore the center of mass and center of resistance coincide. As a
consequence, the torsional effects due to asymmetry of the building are diminished. One
example of friction bearing system is Resilient Friction Bearing (R-FBI). In this system,
concentric layers of Teflon coated friction plates are kept in contact with each other which
dissipate energy and a central core of rubber provides the resilient force there by absorbing
inspection.
Material being used in friction bearings is prone to temperature and environmental
energy dissipation.
Following is a brief list of buildings in USA which are rehabilitated with base isolators,
Tuned mass dampers are the application of anti-resonance phenomenon which occurs in
Multi-DoF systems. A secondary mass is attached to the structure and is then tuned to
natural frequency equal to that of the forcing frequency is added to an SDoF system, then at
a particular frequency ratio, the vibrations of the primary mass (in our case, structure) are
suppressed and all the energy is absorbed by the secondary mass, this phenomenon is
called anti-resonance. Usually, the mass of secondary system is kept equal to 1% of mass of
the structure. The secondary mass is generally fitted at the top or sometimes near top
stories depending on the feasibility. It is connected to the primary system using a flexible
link essentially involving a spring mechanism and it moves in out of phase motion with the
primary structure. Warburton and his collaborators showed that as long as the ratio w1/w2
0.5, parameters for TMD are optimal, where w1 and w2 denote the first and second
natural frequency of the system. The biggest drawback of this method is that earthquake
excitation occurs over a large range of frequencies, and the system cannot be tuned to
It is not possible to present a comprehensive list of all the buildings with tuned mass
An extensive study of tuned mass damper installed in Taipei 101, Taiwan was carried out by
Alex Y. Tuan and G. Q. Shang [JASE, 2014]. They showed that the acceleration responses in
the along-wind and the across-wind directions were substantially reduced by 31.7% and
33.8%, respectively. For a remote earth quake event, the total acceleration was reduced by
13%.
A currently popular type of tuned mass damper is tuned liquid column damper (TLCD).
regarding optimization of TLCDs for wide frequency range and a lot of ideas are proposed
every year. One such system is Tank Pipe Damper System proposed by A.D. Ghosh, P.C. Saha
column damper however it also includes some properties of a sloshing tank damper. It
sections can be used for connecting pipe but Tait and Deng (2010) studied that horizontal
cylindrical type are most robust. In general a liquid undergoing vibrations has two
components (1) Impulsive component due to rigid motion of the liquid and (2) Convective
component caused by part of the liquid experiencing sloshing motion. Short broad tanks are
preferred because they have higher convective component and lesser impulsive component.
Both the motions can be assumed to be uncoupled since there is a large separation in
The studies carried out by Saha and Ghosh shows following distinctions between LCD and
TPD systems-
dampers.
LCDs become ineffective when frequency of ground motion exceeds its tuned
frequency whereas Tank Pipe systems being multi-mode systems can be tuned to
multiple frequencies and thus can be used over a wide range of frequencies.
Optimal orifice damping coefficient of TP damper system shows a very little
variation over large range of operating frequencies so it need not be changed once
orifice diameter.
TP systems provide additional viscous damping ratio of about 1.1-1.7 % for white
Overall Tank-Pipe dampers were found to be a good substitute for liquid column
dampers.
These device uses the energy dissipation mechanism of dampers to dissipate most of the
vibrational energy of the structure. The added dampers result in an increase in the damping
coefficient of the building as a whole. Various types of dampers are used for this purpose
while a good amount of research is still going on. Some selective damping mechanisms are
discussed below-
1. Metallic Yield Damper These dampers are constructed using a series of steel
mild steel plates. These dampers are shown to have stable hysteretic properties
energy. They mainly consist of braces attached to the four corners of the frame
with a damper attached at the crossing of the braces. When the frame sways
laterally the friction slider moves thereby dissipating kinetic energy. The use of
friction based dampers was popularized by Pall (1979). Pall friction dampers are
the most commonly used friction dampers. These consist of a series of steel
plates clamped together with high strength steel bolts and are allowed to slip
only at a predetermined load. These dampers offer a lot of advantages over other
Following is a list of buildings with Pall friction dampers installed (Pall Avtar,
bonded to steel plates. The viscoelastic materials usually used are copolymers or
the heat generated due to dissipation is released through steel members of the
shown that-
'
AG ( w )
K (w)=
G (w)/w
And
C ( w )=(A / )
Where,
A = shear area of viscoelastic material
= thickness of viscoelastic material
K(w) = Overall stiffness of damper
C(w) = overall damping of system
It can be clearly seen that both stiffness and damping are a function of shear
modulus, area of cross section and thickness. Nonlinearities are induced in the
material when a large amount of heat is generated after which these linear
4. Viscous Fluid Dampers These dampers are often installed as part of bracing
fluid but in reality even moderate pressure hydraulic flow through a simple
where the value of a ranges from 0.3 to 1, with 0.4 - 0.5 being the most popular
In this method, a feedback system is used along with an actuator to provide greater control
and effectiveness over a wider range of frequencies. The feedback system consists of
sensors (e.g. accelerometer, displacement, velocity, strain) and a control system (e.g. optimal
Control Forces
Sensors Sensors
Actuators
(e.g. acceleration) or safety (e.g. stresses). Mathematically active systems can be described
as-
m x +c x+ kx=0
Where k, m and c are stiffness, mass and damping respectively. Now, in design of passive
controls, we want to increase stiffness and damping as k+k and c+c. Here k and c are
fixed and chosen by the designer. In case of active systems, this k is used as a
equal to (k)x . First use of active control system was done in Kyobashi Seiwa Building in
Requires external power source to drive actuators which may not be available
during earthquakes
Can destabilize structures
Advanced device control is required which makes them expensive.
1. Electromagnetic Actuator
2. Hydraulic Actuator
3. Pneumatic actuator
The control systems used in the feedback mechanism are governed by control theory. A
method developed in 1980s known as Robust Control is mostly used. This theory employs a
Seismic Vibration Control | Nilesh Kala, Rajat Page 17 of 24
Avasthi, Rajat Mangotra
Different types of control systems used to provide feedback to the actuator are-
In this method, active braces controlled with the help of sensors and actuators are
Few tests on these systems were performed by Nigdeli and Boduroglu [IJCESCA,
2010] on a three storey building model with various tendon angles and
installing tendons only at first storey is not sufficient. Also if tendons are installed at
the all the stories and connected to a common actuator installed in first storey, the
system causes some side effects because the length of tendons become too much and
the increase in vertical angle of tendons causes forces in columns to increase making
the system impractical. So, the best way is to put both tendons and actuators on all
the floors.
This system consists of a frame like structure in which an active mass is installed at
the top in the form of a controllable cart. The cart is driven by a motor through a
suitable arrangement and is free to move along the direction of the structure. The
position and acceleration of the mass is located using a sensor. More mass can be
Seismic Vibration Control | Nilesh Kala, Rajat Page 19 of 24
Avasthi, Rajat Mangotra
added to the system as per the requirements. The optimization of controller logic
can be done in both frequency as well as time domain. By the optimization method,
the feedback gain as well as the parameters of TMD can be simultaneously adjusted
to increase robustness of the system. Isao Nishimura along with his team carried out
Mass ratio is defined as the ratio of secondary mass to primary mass. The optimum
tuning frequency in the passive systems vary as the inverse of the mass ratio.
Nishimura concluded that using an optimum algorithm along with active mass
In this system, the focus is to change the structural properties of the system according to
dynamic response of the structure by using variable stiffness or variable damping. These
systems provide high energy efficiency and sometimes can be even battery powered.
While the research in the field of seismic control is enormous, there are still some
limitations in each of the methods as described in this report. Without getting a fully
functional method, we cannot replace ductile design. As a candid remark, we would like to
conclude that, if employed, semi-active control methods are best followed by active control
building by a large tuned mass damper utilizing whole weight of the top floor,
Beijing, China
2. [Xiang Ping, Nishitani Akira], Seismic vibration control of building structures
with multiple tuned mass damper floors integrated, The Journal of the
April 1997
4. [Ghosh A.D., Saha P.C., Basu B.], Study of a Tank-Pipe Damper System for Seismic
Control, http://www.brighthubengineering.com/building-construction-