Simultaneous energy harvesting and vibration control of structures with tuned mass dampers

The vibrations of the tall buildings are serious concerns to both engineers and architects for the protection of the safety of the structure and occupant comfort. In order to mitigate the vibration, different approaches have been proposed, among which tuned mass dampers are one of the most preferable and have been widely used in practice. Instead of dissipating the vibration energy into heat waste via the viscous damping element, this article presents an approach to harvest the vibration energy from tall buildings with tuned mass dampers, by replacing the energy-dissipating element with an electromagnetic harvester. This article demonstrates that vibration mitigation and energy harvesting can be achieved simultaneously by the utilization of an electricity-generating tuned mass damper and relevant algorithms. Based on the proposed switching energy harvesting circuit, three control strategies are investigated in this article, namely, semi-active, self-powered active, and passive-matching regenerative. The functions of the energy harvesting circuit on damping force control and power regulation, as well the effectiveness of the control strategies, are illustrated by simulation. The simultaneous energy harvesting and vibration control are demonstrated, for the first time, by experiment based on a three-story building prototype with the electricity-generating tuned mass damper, which is composed of a rotational brushed direct current motor and rack–pinion mechanism.