On the Estimation of the Moving Mass of a TMD Installed on a Lively Structure

Tuned Mass Dampers are devices which can be assimilated to single-degree-of-freedom systems with a certain amount of moving mass, a natural frequency and a damping ratio intended to be installed on lively structures to reduce the contribution of a certain mode to their response. Once placed on the structure, the movement of the mass damper couples to the structural response and determines its properties as an isolated system becomes challenging. The authors have previously presented a methodology to estimate the natural frequency and damping ratio of an SDOF system installed on a structure and not necessarily tuned to a certain mode. It was based on a transmissibility function and, thus, the moving mass could not be estimated. With this work, the authors go one step further and present a novel procedure to estimate the moving mass value by means of the same transmissibility function and two well selected frequency response functions. The methodology is applied to estimate the properties of a real single-degree-of-freedom system placed on a lively timber platform. The results are compared with the mass modification technique to show that the proposed methodology provides better estimations in a more efficient way.