Application of tuned liquid dampers in controlling the torsional vibration of high rise buildings

Excessive motions in buildings cause occupants to become uncomfortable and nervous. This is particularly detrimental to the tenants and ultimately the owner of the building, with respect to financial considerations. Serviceability issues, such as excessive accelerations and inter-story drifts, are more prevalent today due to advancements in the structural systems, strength of materials, and design practices. These factors allow buildings to be taller, lighter, and more flexible, thereby exacerbating the impact of dynamic responses. There is a growing need for innovative and effective techniques to reduce the serviceability responses of these tall buildings. The current study considers a case study of a real building to show the effectiveness and robustness of the TLD in reducing the coupled lateral-torsional motion of this high-rise building under wind loading. Three unique multi-modal TLD systems are designed specifically to mitigate the torsional response of the building. A procedure is developed to analyze a structure-TLD system using High Frequency Force Balance (HFFB) test data from the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory (BLWTL) at the University of Western Ontario. The effectiveness of the unique TLD systems is investigated. In addition, a parametric study is conducted to determine the robustness of the systems in reducing the serviceability responses. Three practical parameters are varied to investigate the robustness of the TLD system: the height of water inside the tanks, the amplitude modification factor, and the structural modal frequencies.