SUMMARYThis paper proposes the use of a novel type of passive vibration control system to reduce vibrations in civil engineering structures subject to base excitation. The new system is based on the inerter, a device that was initially developed for high‐performance suspensions in Formula 1 racing cars. The principal advantage of the inerter is that a high level of vibration isolation can be achieved with low amounts of added mass. This feature makes it an attractive potential alternative to traditional tuned mass dampers (TMDs). In this paper, the inerter system is modelled inside a multi‐storey building and is located on braces between adjacent storeys. Numerical results show that an excellent level of vibration reduction is achieved, potentially offering improvement over TMDs. The inerter‐based system is compared to a TMD system by using a range of base excitation inputs, including an earthquake signal, to demonstrate how the performance could potentially be improved by using an inerter instead of a TMD. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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SUMMARYIn this paper, the use of a tuned inerter damper (TID) as a vibration absorber is studied numerically and experimentally, with civil engineering applications in mind. Inerters complete the analogy between mechanical and electrical networks, as the mechanical element equivalent to a capacitor and were developed in the 2000s. Initially, inerters were used for applications in automotive engineering, where they are known as J-dampers. Recently, research has suggested that inerter-based networks could be used for civil engineering applications, offering interesting advantages over traditional tuned mass dampers. In the civil engineering context, research has been mainly theoretical, considering ideal inerters. Because the dynamics of an inerter device include nonlinearities, especially at the low frequencies associated with civil engineering applications, the performance of the TID device using an off-theshelf inerter has been experimentally tested in the work presented here. The chosen system, comprising a host structure with a TID attached to it, was tested using real-time dynamic substructuring (RTDS) or hybrid testing. The inerter was tested physically, while the remaining components of the TID device, the spring and damper, together with the host structure, were simulated numerically. Displacements and forces at the interface between numerical and physical components are updated in real time. This numerical-physical split allows the optimisation of the TID parameters, because the values of the spring and the damper can be changed without altering the experimental setup. In addition, this configuration takes into account the inerter's potentially complex dynamics by testing it experimentally, together with the characteristics of the host structure. Developing RTDS tests for physical inertial substructures, where part of the fed back interface forces are proportional to acceleration, is a challenging task because of delays arising at the interface between the experimental and the numerical substructures. Problems associated with stability issues caused by delay and causality arise, because we are dealing with neutral and advanced delayed differential equations. A new approach for the substructuring algorithm is proposed, consisting of feeding back the measured force deviation from the ideal inerter instead of the actual force at the interface. The experimental results show that with appropriate retuning of the components in the TID device, the performance in the TID incorporating the real inerter device is close to the ideal inerter device.

Summary This paper proposes a novel fully probabilistic framework for the performance‐based seismic design of structures and uses tuned inerter dampers (TID) installed in civil engineering structures subjected to seismic loads to illustrate its applicability. The framework proposed is based on stochastic reduced‐order models, which makes it computationally efficient and can be used for the design of TIDs installed in any complex nonlinear structures subjected to general nonstationary, non‐Gaussian stochastic processes. In this study, the TID is installed in a multi‐degree‐of‐freedom nonlinear structure that is subjected to synthetic seismic records. Numerical results show that the framework proposed is able to provide rigorous and robust values for the parameters of the TID. The design parameters obtained using the stochastic framework proposed are compared with benchmark deterministic approaches, tested also for a large data set of ground‐motion real records. It is shown that the stochastic approach provides insightful designs of the TID that are consistent with the site seismicity and the frequency content of the stochastic excitation.

Cables are widely used structural elements capable of bearing tensile forces and experience vibration problems due to their slenderness and low mass. In the field of civil engineering, they are mostly used in bridges where the vibrations are mainly induced by wind, rain, traffic and earthquakes. This paper proposes the use of a tuned-inerter-damper (TID) system, mounted on cables to suppress unwanted vibrations. These are to be attached transversally to the cable, in the vicinity of the support, connected between the deck and the cable. The potential advantage of using a TID system consists in the high apparent mass that can be produced by the inerter. Our analysis showed that the modal damping ratio obtained is much higher than in the case of traditional dampers or tuned mass dampers, leading to an improved overall response. An optimal tuning methodology is also discussed. Numerical results are shown with a cable subjected to both free and forced vibrations and the TID performance is improved when compared with equivalent dampers.