Tuned dampers behavior for seismic energy dissipation

Passive energy dissipation (PED) devices are a group of structural protective systems which are widely accepted by the engineering community. The basic function of these devices when added to a structure is to absorb a portion of input energy due to earthquake or other dynamic excitations and, as a result, reducing energy dissipation demand on primary structural members. Passive control systems based on the structural response control are divided in two groups. The first group is used to reduce structural response by conversion of kinetic energy to heat and the second one by regarding the increased mass of oscillators, transfer energy among vibrational modes. The second group includes dynamic vibration absorber such as tuned mass damper, Tuned Sloshing Damper and tuned liquid column damper. In this paper, the effect of tuned dampers to reduce structural response caused by lateral loads is investigated. The devices, their make-up method of operation, advantages and disadvantages and examples of their applications are presents.