Bi-directional adaptive eddy current pendulum tuned mass damper for structural nonlinear seismic response control

• Published in: Journal of Building Engineering 2025-04, Vol.99, Article 111455
• Main Authors: Wang, Liangkun, Zhou, Ying
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive tuned mass damper; Bi-directional eddy current damper; Earthquake excitation; Nonlinear dynamics; Super tall building
• ISSN: 2352-7102; 2352-7102
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2024.111455

Earthquake is a great threat to building structure, while one of the popular earthquake mitigation devices is the tuned mass damper (TMD). Passive TMD will decrease its earthquake mitigation due to the detuning effect. Eddy current damping (ECD) is a popular non-contact damping, however, existing researches are mainly focused on the unidirectional ECD. Further, the study on the seismic response control performance of nonlinear structures by TMD is lacking. To fill the above blanks, based on the previously developed adaptive EC pendulum TMD (AEC-PTMD), which can retune the pendulum length and eddy current damping ratio, in this study, the bi-directional ECD is developed and investigated through a scaled model test for parametric discussion and electromagnetic finite element model analysis respectively. Therefore, the previous unidirectional AEC-PTMD is updated to a bi-directional one, which is focused on the aseismic protection of tall building. As for the tallest building in China with a 1000 tonne TMD, the Shanghai Center Tower is a landmark and it is necessary and important to investigate its nonlinear behavior under earthquakes in the case study. It can not only ensure the structural safety and improve the structural seismic resilience, but also propose a benchmark analysis and design flow of adaptive TMD for tall and special buildings. Bi-directional frequency and damping ratio retuning of the AEC-PTMD is verified, and the nonlinear earthquake mitigation performance is studied. Though the TMD in a super tall building is mainly focused on the wind-induced vibration control, it is found that a well-retuned AEC-PTMD also has a satisfactory nonlinear aseismic protection performance in general. •A bi-directional adaptive eddy current pendulum tuned mass damper (AEC-PTMD) is proposed.•The bi-directional ECD is investigated through a scaled model test and electromagnetic finite element model analysis.•A landmark super tall benchmark building is studied to verify the parameter retuning effect of the bi-directional AEC-PTMD.•The bi-directional AEC-PTMD has a satisfactory nonlinear aseismic protection performance.