Effectiveness of Tuned Mass Damper in Reducing Damage Caused by Strong Earthquake in a Medium-Rise Building

A case study where a tuned mass damper (TMD) was installed at the top of a five-story reinforced concrete (RC) building is presented. The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the TMD in changing the structural behavior of medium-rise existing buildings from dissipative to non-dissipative in order to eliminate reparation or demolition costs resulting from damages caused by strong earthquakes. The TMD mass is made by a RC slab lying on flat surface sliders. Horizontal stiffness and damping of the TMD are both provided by lead rubber isolators in the first proposed solution and by low-damping rubber isolators and viscous linear dampers, respectively, in the second. The improvement in the building’s structural behavior attained with the installation of the TMD was assessed by considering the flexural demand over capacity ratios of structural elements and the energy dissipated by the TMD. These results are compared with those of the same building retrofitted with a base isolation system. In both of the proposed solutions, TMD remarkably changed the modal behavior of the considered building, improved the flexural verifications, and dissipated most of the input seismic energy. It is therefore demonstrated that a TMD is a valid solution for the retrofit of medium-rise existing buildings.