Seismic response control of adjacent high-rise buildings linked by the Tuned Liquid Column Damper-Inerter (TLCDI)

A novel passive control device termed Tuned Liquid Column Damper-Inerter (TLCDI) is adopted to control the seismic response of adjacent high-rise buildings. The inerter of the proposed TLCDI scheme exploits the large relative acceleration between the two adjacent buildings, producing a significant resisting force. Firstly, the governing nonlinear equations of motion of the TLCDI-linked adjacent high-rise buildings under earthquake excitation are formulated. For design purposes, the inherent nonlinear behavior of the TLCDI is linearized by adopting an equivalent stochastic linearization method. Subsequently, a benchmark structure consisting of two adjacent high-rise buildings linked by a corridor with a roller support and equipped with a TLCDI is examined. Eight characteristic parameters of the TLCDI are optimized through two distinct constrained multi-objective optimization problems by an evolutionary algorithm aimed at minimizing either the peak acceleration or the interstory-drift ratio of the two adjacent benchmark structures, respectively. Mitigation effects of the optimally designed TLCDIs on the responses of the benchmark structure are assessed considering a set of ten natural ground-motion records. It is found that the optimum TLCDI achieves mean reduction ratios of 15.7 and 26.1% on the peak acceleration of both the buildings, respectively. Conversely, the TLCDI fails to significantly reduce the interstory drift ratios. Robustness analysis of the optimally designed TLCDI is investigated under perturbations to the frequency and damping ratios. Some practical considerations are finally discussed concerning the feasibility of employing the proposed TLCDI in the considered benchmark project.