Seismic Control of Structures Using Sloped Bottom Tuned Liquid Damper

Timed liquid damper (TLD) as an economical passive damper has gained importance because of its efficiency in suppressing the undesirable motion of a structure due to devastating earthquakes when it is rigidly attached to the structure. This phenomenon has been studied previously, but mostly limited to rectangular- or cylindrical-shaped TLD. The present study is aimed at determining the potential of the sloped bottom tuned liquid damper to suppress the unwanted vibration of the structure subjected to earthquake ground motion. Three different earthquake ground motions characterized by low-, intermediate- and high-frequency contents are selected for the dynamic analysis of the TLD-structure coupled system. A parametric study on the sloped bottom TLD and its interaction with the sustaining structural system is conducted. The structural equations, which are coupled with fluid equations, are solved by the Newmark-beta method with average acceleration, while the fluid equations are solved using velocity potential-based finite element method. The liquid domain in the TLD is comprised of a combination of three-node triangular and four-node quadrilateral elements. The result shows the reduction in structure response is significant with less amount of water in sloped bottom TLD rather than rectangular TLD.