Vibration control of submerged floating tunnel in waves and earthquakes through tuned mass damper

In this study, a passive tuned mass damper (TMD) is investigated to dampen resonant motions of a submerged floating tunnel (SFT) in waves and earthquakes. TMD is adopted to control resonant lateral motion. A time-domain dynamics simulation model that considers the elasticity of the tunnel and mooring lines is first established, which is based on the lumped mass method and Morison equation, and the SFT-TMD interaction is considered through springs and dampers. Next, by using the harmony search (HS) algorithm, TMD's spring and damping coefficients are optimized; the dynamics simulations under white noise seismic excitations are continuously carried out with updated spring and damping coefficients produced by HS rules until the designed maximum iteration number. The influence of TMD's mass is individually investigated through a parametric study. After the optimization process is completed, the global performances of SFT with and without TMD are systematically evaluated in both waves and earthquakes. It is found that TMD plays a crucial role in controlling SFT vibrations when environmental loads are close to the system's fundamental lateral natural frequency under both wave and seismic excitations. TMD also enhances the comfort of passengers and reduces static and dynamic mooring tensions.