Performance of a gas-spring tuned mass damper under seismic excitation

A nonlinear gas-spring is integrated into the traditional tuned mass damper (TMD), leading to a novel gas-spring tuned mass damper (GSTMD) system, which can be used to mitigate the structural responses. To better couple the tuned mass damping system, a symmetrical combined gas-spring (SCGS) is presented based on a single gas-spring, and its mechanical properties are investigated through a case study. The design method of the gas-spring TMD is obtained, and its corresponding configuration parameters are calculated. The control performance and damping mechanism of the gas-spring TMD under the random excitation are studied by parameter analysis, and the reliability of the gas-spring TMD's control performance is also discussed. The results show that the gas-spring TMD has a two-stage damping mechanism, and its working stage can change flexibly with the excitation intensity. Furthermore, the gas-spring TMD has excellent "Reconciling Control Performance", which not only has a comparable control performance as the linear TMD, but also has significant advantages in working stroke, more importantly, the control performance and working stroke of the gas-spring TMD can reconcile with each other. Besides, the control performance of the proposed damper is insensitive to unpredictable seismic excitations, indicating that the gas-spring TMD has good reliability.