Rotational inertial double tuned mass damper for human-induced floor vibration control

An inerter is a passive mechanical element whose inertance can be thousands of times its own physical mass. This paper discusses the application of an inerter-based passive control system, termed rotational inertial double-tuned mass damper (RIDTMD), to mitigate human-induced floor vibrations. First, the acceleration frequency response function of the floor with an RIDTMD is first derived. It is then employed to determine the optimal design parameters of the RIDTMD using the extended fixed-points technique. Based on a theoretical analysis, design-oriented empirical functions are proposed for the RIDTMD optimal parameters, whose performance for floor vibration control is evaluated by numerical examples, in which three typical human-induced load types are considered: walking, jumping, and bouncing. The results indicate that the applicability and effectiveness of the RIDTMD for human-induced floor vibration control are robust for various load types, load frequencies, and floor natural frequencies. For the same mass ratio, the RIDTMD is better than the TMD in reducing the floor vibration amplitude and improving the effective frequency suppression bandwidth, and for the same vibration suppression effect, the mass of the RIDTMD is much lighter than that of the TMD.