Real-world installations of tuned liquid column dampers for wind-induced vibration control of tall buildings

The tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) is regarded as one of the most cost-effective, reliable, and low-maintenance passive structural vibration control devices, which offers a quantifiable amount of supplemental damping. Being an inherently long-period system, it is suitable for the wind-induced vibration mitigation of tall and slender structures. The limitation of unidirectional vibrational control has been overcome by several configurational variations that have also led to the performance enhancement of the original damper. The current work traces the development of the TLCD and presents case studies on its real-world installation in six landmark buildings worldwide, namely, the Hotel Cosima, Tokyo, Japan; the One Wall Center, Vancouver, Canada; the Random House Tower, New York City, USA; the Comcast Center, Philadelphia, USA; the First World Towers, Incheon, South Korea; and the 461 Dean Street, New York, USA. Each case study has been systematically categorized into description of the structure, design of the TLCD system, and the functioning of the installed damper system. The overall observations from the case studies indicate the successful performance of the TLCD in improving the serviceability of flexible buildings, while also identifying important damper design features as well as future directions of improvement and application.