Tuned mass damper (TMD) is a widely used vibration control device, consisting of a mass, some springs and damping elements. Viscous damper is mostly used as a damping element; however, it has many unsustainable problems, e.g., poor durability, sensitive to the change of temperature, difficult to adjust the damping, oil leakage etc. In this paper, a new sustainable adaptive-passive eddy current tuned mass damper (ECTMD) with variable damping, which is very easy to be further upgraded to a semi-active one, is proposed. Four important parameters, e.g., adsorption position of permanent magnets, thickness of the conductive plate, thickness of the extra steel plate and the air gap between permanent magnets and the conductive plate are investigated by a parametric study. Two new evaluation indexes are put forward to indicate the damping mechanism of the proposed device. The relationship between effective damping coefficient and air gap is fitted through a quadratic function. Then, the corresponding design method of the proposed adaptive–passive ECTMD is presented. At last, the previous adaptive–passive ECTMD is upgraded to a semi-active one, which can adjust its eddy current damping through adjusting its air gap in real-time, based on the linear-quadratic-Gaussian algorithm. The effectiveness of semi-active ECTMD is evaluated through harmonic excitations and human-induced excitations. The results show that the semi-active ECTMD with variable damping has a better vibration control effect than the optimized passive one.

Particle dampers are nonlinear vibration control devices. The surface property has a great influence on the performance of the particle damper, but it is difficult to be considered and analyzed. This paper firstly gives a view of how to establish a theoretic model of the particle damper. The dynamic equation and energy dissipation coefficient of collision are revised from the Hertz contact theory in the proposed theoretic model, considering the friction of particles. Then, a contrastive collision model relying on the finite element method is established to verify the reasonability of the theoretic model. The effects of different factors which will have an influence on the performance of the particle damper are discussed, and several conclusions on how to optimize the particle damper are proposed. Except for the aforementioned dynamic analysis, this paper also presents a particle damping index to evaluate the capability of energy dissipation of different materials, in order to facilitate the material selection in the practical design. Finally, an experiment is developed to verify the character of the collision and energy dissipation. The feasibility of the proposed method to estimate the surface property of different particles is validated by the free vibration experiment.

Mortise–tenon joints play a crucial role in traditional timber structures to resist service and earthquake loading. In this work, the steel mortise–tenon connection from a traditional timber house was extracted and developed for a lightweight steel structure integrated building. This article presents a study on the dynamic performance of an integrated steel house with steel mortise–tenon connections. A shaking table test was conducted with a full-scale model and various excitation intensities. Various parameters, including the natural frequency, the equivalent stiffness of the structure, the structural damping ratio, the acceleration response and the displacement response, were analysed and discussed. In the test, the model frequencies decreased from 15.19 to less than 13.38 Hz, while the damping ratio increased by 32.6%. The test model survived all the input earthquake excitations (peak ground acceleration of up to 1.0g) with only minor damage, indicating the good seismic resilience of the building. The test results demonstrate that the integrated house structure with steel mortise–tenon connections is a good solution for withstanding earthquakes. An integrated structure bounded by a steel mortise–tenon system with proper design typically exhibits good seismic behaviour and can resist earthquake under different seismic levels in practice.

Under human-induced excitations, a floor structure may suffer excessive vibrations due to its large span and low damping ratio. Vertical vibrations, in particular, can become intolerable during resonance events. A tuned mass damper (TMD) is a widely used single-degree-of-freedom dynamic vibration absorber. To enhance the serviceability of a floor structure, a multiple TMD (MTMD) system finds broad application. The parameters of the MTMD must be carefully designed to achieve satisfactory performance. However, existing studies often employ a simplified model of the floor structure with closely spaced modes to optimize the parameters of MTMD. Nonetheless, an oversimplified floor model can lead to a reduction in its control effect. To solve this problem, this study utilizes the OAPI facility of SAP2000 to build a connection with MATLAB. A multi-objective optimization algorithm based on the artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA) for MTMD is developed in MATLAB, while the finite element model of a real floor structure is built in SAP2000. The locations of the MTMD system are initially specified in SAP2000 and, through the proposed MATLAB–SAP2000 interface, data can be exchanged between them. Based on the structural dynamic responses to external excitations in SAP2000, the optimization process for the MTMD is carried out in MATLAB. Concurrently, the parameters of the MTMD in SAP2000 are iteratively adjusted until they reach their final optimal values. To underscore the enhancements brought about by the proposed interface and optimization method, a comparative case study is conducted. A group of MTMDs, optimized using a conventional method, is presented for reference. The numerical results indicate that, overall, the proposed MTMD system exhibits superior control effectiveness and robustness.

Wooden structure houses deteriorate over time due to environmental aging, fatigue, and other reasons. In order to solve this problem, composite timber beams strengthened by extra steel bars (rebar) and carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) are studied experimentally in this paper. Specimens with various strenghting, ie., rebars only, CFRP only, and a combination of the two, were considered under four-point flexural tests. Failure, displacement and strain response and ductility capacity were evaluated for the present tested models. Dramatic enhancement of the capacity in addition to improved deflection and ductility were gained for the strengthened beams relative to the plain specimens, indicating the effectiveness of the reinforcement on the flexural strength of such composite beams.

Megatall and supertall buildings often adopt megastructure systems characterized by secondary structure systems, and the serviceability problem caused by wind‐induced vibrations often becomes the dominant factor in the structural design. Because the deformation of a supertall building usually presents bending characteristics, a viscous damped outrigger can reduce the wind‐induced vibration of a supertall building with the installation of a small number of viscous dampers. However, time history analysis of the prototype model considering the nonlinear characteristics of viscous dampers is time‐consuming, which is not conducive for iterative design optimization. Additionally, the conventional simplified model composed of one cantilever beam cannot be used for the analysis and design of a viscous damped outrigger. In this study, a simplified wind‐induced vibration prediction model is proposed based on the mechanical characteristics of megastructures. This simplified model is a plane model that includes both core walls and frames whose member size can be extracted from the original structure. Parametric analysis shows that the simplified model has high acceleration prediction accuracy. An optimal design method combined with the simplified model, which aims to minimize the damped outrigger system cost, is proposed. A 600‐m supertall building is presented as a case study. The accuracy and effectiveness of the simplified model and the optimal design method proposed in this study are illustrated. Thus, applying this optimal design method in combination with the simplified model can save significant analysis and design time and is conducive to the application of viscous damped outriggers in practical engineering.