Earthquake papers
Studies on the application of tuned liquid dampers (TLD) to upgrade the seismic resistance of structures
A. El Damatty, April 2002
ICLR Research Paper Series - No. 17
Abstract
The risk of occurrence of severe damage or structural failures during a catastrophic event (eg. Earthquakes and hurricanes) can be reduced by adopting techniques to increase the damping characteristics of a structure. Damping is defined as the ability of the structure to dissipate a portion of the energy released during a dynamic loading event. A tuned liquid damper (TLD) system represents an efficient and simple technique to increase the damping of a structure. It involves the attachment of one or multiple liquid-filled tanks to the structures. The TLD system relies on the sloshing wave developing at the free surface of the fluid to dissipate a portion of the dynamic energy. The growing interest in liquid dampers is due to their low capital and maintenance cost and their ease of installation into existing and new structures. While the behavior of tuned liquid dampers under low level of oscillation has been well documented, their response to large oscillation (that can be exhibited during a strong seismic event) are fairly complicated especially with the potential of occurrence of surface wave breaking.
An extensive research program to investigate the behavior of a TLD system as a technique to up grade the seismic resistance of existing and new structure has been recently initiated at the University of Western Ontario. Three Ph.D. students are currently searching various aspects of this challenging problem. A summary of this research programs is presented in this report.