Extracting parameters of TMD and primary structure from the combined system responses

Tuned mass dampers (TMDs) have been a prevalent vibration control device for suppressing excessive vibration because of environmental loadings in contemporary tall buildings since the mid-1970s. A TMD must be tuned to the natural frequency of the primary structure to be effective. In practice, a TMD may be assembled in situ, simultaneously with the building construction. In such a situation, the respective dynamic properties of the TMD device and building cannot be identified to determine the tuning status of the TMD. For this purpose, a methodology was developed to obtain the parameters of the TMD and primary building on the basis of the eigenparameters of any two complex modes of the combined building–TMD system. The theory was derived in state-space to characterize the nonclassical damping feature of the system, and combined with a system identification technique to obtain the system eigenparameters using the acceleration measurements. The proposed procedure was first demonstrated using a numerical verification and then applied to real, experimental data of a large-scale building–TMD system. The results showed that the procedure is capable of identifying the respective parameters of the TMD and primary structure and is applicable in real implementations by using only the acceleration response measurements of the TMD and its located floor.