Modified liquid column damper for vibration control of structures

A modified version of the traditional tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) absorber is proposed as a passive vibration control device for structures vibrating at low frequencies. This new version, denoted as tuned liquid column ball damper (TLCBD), is equipped with a coated steel ball, in place of the orifice in TLCD, immersed inside the horizontal column of the damper. The current study examines the performance of TLCBD for a harmonic excitation which is a simplified model for the vortex shedding forces on structures in the cross wind direction. A parametric study to investigate the effect of the ball size and absorber mass on the suppression capacity is carried out. The absorber damping characteristics is identified experimentally using a single point laser vibrometer system and the measured damping factor is used in the mathematical model. Intensive numerical simulations were conduced and the results are compared with the traditional TLCD with optimum parameters. The results revealed an improvement of the vibration suppression capability of the proposed version that exceeds around 66% reduction.

► New design of the traditional liquid column damper (LCD) for vibration control is presented.
► The performance of the LCD is compared with the new LCBD and the results showed good improvements.
► A procedure for the design of the LCBD is presented to assist civil engineers in the design of the absorber.