Structural behaviour of water sloshing damper with embossments subject to random excitation

Abstract

To improve the serviceability of tall buildings, several types of vibration control systems have been developed. The tuned liquid damper (TLD) has advantages, such as simple adjustment of natural frequency, easy installation, and low maintenance. Since water tanks at the top of tall buildings can be directly modeled as a TLD system, it is more practical than any other vibration control system in Korea. Since most of the tanks in Korea have embossments on the wall, the structural characteristics are different from those of tanks used in other countries. As the damping ratio of the TLD depends on several factors, such as the magnitude and frequency of applied load, the shape of the tank, wall roughness, and so forth, it is difficult to evaluate the control performance of the tank exactly. In this study, the characteristics of the water sloshing damper with embossments (WSDE) are evaluated and the equation for equivalent damping ratio is proposed. To clarify the damping effect of a high-rise building with a damping device subject to random excitation, an experiment of a coupled structural model with a water tank was conducted. The parameters were mass ratio of water to model structure, number of wire screens, and shape factor of the water tank. The peak displacement, acceleration response, and standard deviation of the experimental results are analyzed. The coupled structural model with a water tank shows lower maximum and standard deviation responses than those of the structural model alone.Key words: water sloshing damper with embossment, vibration control, structural test, tall buildings.