Water Tanks as Tuned Mass Damper in High Rise Buildings: A Review

Abstract

Due to rapid urbanization, industrialization, increasing land cost and space limitation, the demand of high rise buildings is increasing. Such high rise buildings are constructed with light weight and high strength materials using advanced construction techniques. This leads the structure to be flexible and lightly damped, which increases the possibility of human discomfort, structural damage and even failure during the earthquake ground motion. A new concept of vibration supressing devices can be implemented to mitigate the response of the structure during dynamic excitation. The existing mass of water tank can be used as tuned mass damper without adversely affecting its functional use with low cost and maintenance. It dissipates energy through liquid sloshing and wave breaking. The fundamental liquid sloshing frequency is tuned to the structure’s natural frequency to obtain maximum vibration control. The effectiveness of the tuned liquid damper is governed by the parameters i.e. mass ratio, depth ratio and tuning ratio. This paper investigates the effect of water tank as a tuned mass damper on a high rise building.