TUNED MASS DAMPERS UNDER

EXCESSIVE STRUCTURAL EXCITATION

T. Haskett1, B. Breukelman1, J. Robinson1, J. Kottelenberg1

1
Motioneering Inc., Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1K 1B8

ABSTRACT

Motioneering Inc. of Guelph, Ontario, Canada specializes in the design and construction of damping systems for
major civil structures. The main design criteria of these damping systems is to mitigate structural vibration for the
purposes of serviceability and/or load resistance.

Typically, the design constraints for damping systems related to serviceability involve forces and displacements that
are generally of a magnitude which can readily be dealt with. However, when Motioneering became involved with
the Design/Build of a number of damping systems for an upcoming project in Asia, this was not the case.

Taipei 101 (formerly known as the Taipei Financial Center) currently under construction in the capital city Taipei,
Taiwan will be the next world’s tallest building. It will rise to the unprecedented height of 508m - a significant
achievement even if one disregards its geography where typhoons and earthquakes are common occurrences. The
660 tonne Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) for the building and two TMDs for the pinnacle involve the implementation
of passive technology. Although the primary function of the TMDs in this project is to reduce the effects of
wind-induced vibration, they have been designed to withstand the forces generated in up to a 2,500-year (mean
recurrence interval) seismic event. For events less than a 100-year earthquake, the building TMD will behave
relatively calmly, as does the building in which it has been installed. Approaching events with mean recurrence
intervals of 1000 to 2500 years, the design challenge was to keep the TMDs from damaging the structure, and to
remain in place and intact after severe event had passed and the vibration of the structure ended.

The design approach for these two extreme loading cases, typhoon and seismic, are described and examples of the
outcome of the extensive analyses are presented herein.

INTRODUCTION

Taipei 101 is a tremendous architectural, engineering and construction achievement. Traditional Chinese elements
are integrated into a sleek modern high-rise building. The tower and associated podium will contain over 412,400m2
(4,439,000ft2) of commercial, office and hotel space. A structural scheme utilizing steel supercolumns that contain
reinforced concrete up to level 62, involves a total of 95,000 tonnes of high strength steel (SM570M) and 23,900m3
of high-strength concrete (70 mPa) produces a relatively stiff structure with an expected first natural vibration period
of 6.8 seconds. A pinnacle on top of the 455m high building brings the total height to 508m.

Figures 1 and 2 show the passive damping systems which are currently under construction for the Taipei 101
building. They will be referred to throughout the remainder of the paper. A number of superlatives can be noted:
the building TMD will be the largest passive TMD when complete and it will also be the first constructed as a key
architectural and visual element in the building. So, while the building TMD was implemented in order to meet
serviceability criteria it also allows for a unique focal point at the top of the occupied structure.
WIND INDUCED RESPONSES

Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin, of Guelph, Ontario, Canada was retained by the architect, CY Lee and Partners,
and structural engineer, Evergreen Consulting Engineering, to perform wind tunnel testing for the project. A variety
of tests were performed to determine the effect of the local wind environment on the pedestrians, for the design of
the cladding system and for the structural design of the tower itself. It is interesting to note that for much of the
structural design, local loads are governed by seismic stresses. However, for the overall loading on the structure,
ie, base bending moments, the wind loads govern the design. The test results were integrated into the overall
scheme of Taipei 101, including a number of minor shape changes to optimize the wind loads with the proposed
structural scheme.

Figure 1: Taipei 101 Building TMD Figure 2: Taipei 101 Pinnacle TMDs

Building TMD

The building TMD, as shown in Figure 1, is essentially a pendulum that spans 5 floors of the structure. Having
worked out the amplitude requirements under extreme loading scenarios, as discussed in the following sections, the
architect was able to incorporate this vibration absorber into the architectural scheme of the uppermost occupied
floors. From the restaurant and bar, through the center of which the TMD penetrates, patrons will be able to see the
660 tonne steel ball swinging slightly many days of the year, under light winds. During the strongest wind storm
expected to occur in half of a year, according to the Taipei local meteorological records, the building TMD will
reduce the peak acceleration of the top occupied floor from 7.9milli-g to 5.0milli-g (where 1milli-g is 1/1000 of
Earth’s standard gravity). This performance is shown graphically in Figure 3, and contrasted against the ISO
acceleration criteria, as well as the Taiwanese criteria of 5.0cm/s2 (5.1milli-g).
 Acceleration vs. Return Period
50

40

TOTAL ACCELERATION (milli-g)

30

Taiwanese Criteria (5.1 milli-g)

20

10

0
0.1 1 10
RETURN PERIOD (years)

ISO Criteria Time Domain TMD

Figure 3: Effectiveness of building TMD under moderate winds

However, being a completely passive device means that the building TMD is also in motion during substantially
stronger wind events, e.g. 100 years. The design of the TMD must be economically justifiable with regards to
possible damage to component parts and the surrounding structure. At such wind levels, the most sensitive devices
in this assembly are the Viscous Damping Devices (VDD). These VDDs must be able to dissipate, as heat, enough
of the energy that they are removing from the structure to avoid overheating and subsequent failure. An example
time history of the power absorbed by a single VDD is shown in Figure 4.

This is achieved without the use of supplemental liquid cooling by a heat-resistant VDD design (e.g. high
temperature seals, a working fluid which is thermally stable, etc.). Extensive testing by the chosen supplier has
demonstrated such a level of capability, far beyond the norm in the hydraulic damper industry.

40

30
VDD Power (kW)

20

10

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Time (s)

Figure 4: VDD power handling requirements during 100-year wind event

Pinnacle TMDs

Due to the strong wind climate in Taipei, the slenderness of the Pinnacle, and the structural discontinuities at the
top of the structure as it steps down from the full building width to the pinnacle diameter, there exist a number of
vibrational modes which cause Vortex Induced Oscillation (VIO) at common wind speeds.

The principal difficulty with VIO in this instance is not that of design wind load, but rather the rapid accumulation
of fatigue cycles. VIO has been identified to occur at several frequencies, as follows: 0.656Hz, 0.860Hz, and
1.082Hz. All of the associated mode shapes involve a simple bending translation of the Pinnacle, with no inflection
points. It is the behaviour of the levels below the spire base, through to the wide roof and below, that differ in each
mode. Also, because of the symmetry of the structure, perpendicular mode shapes are paired at near-identical
frequencies; the pairs of modes 7 & 8, 10 & 11, and 12 & 13, will be hereafter referred to by only the first mode in
each pairing.

A TMD is very effective in reducing structural response due to narrow banded excitation, as is the case with VIO.
On the other hand, the more problematic frequencies (0.86Hz and 1.08Hz, corresponding to modes 10 and 12,
respectively) are too far apart to be effectively controlled by a single TMD. Therefore, 2 separate TMDs have been
designed, as shown in Figure 2. Each TMD is built to target a different structural frequency, and controls the
amplitude in both principal perpendicular directions. Figure 5 gives a graphical representation of bins of number
of cycles, and the associated base bending moment, induced by VIO in 100 years of wind. This figure also shows
the effect of adding the TMDs to the Pinnacle. Note that the number of cycles have not been reduced by the TMDs,
but the magnitude of the bending moments have been.

300000
mode 10 VIO

250000
Base dynamic moment (kN*m)

200000

150000

100000
mode 12 VIO
50000 mode 7 VIO

0
1E3 1E4 1E5 1E6
Number of Cycles

Mode 7 Mode 10 Mode 12 M10 TMD M12 TMD

Figure 5: Fatigue cycle accumulation by Vortex Induced Oscillation

(VIO)

Given the pinnacle size, height and wind climate, the quantity of wind energy that is accepted by the structure is very
large. In order to achieve the bending moment reductions shown, for the duration of a VIO event that may last for
several hours, all of this power must be dissipated by the VDDs as heat. This challenge was met, in the very tight
confines shown in Figure 2, by using external fluid circulation in the hydraulic cylinders (VDDs), and a forced
air/oil heat exchanger.
SEISMIC STRUCTURAL RESPONSES

If Taipei 101 had been destined to grace the skylines of Miami, or Hong Kong, then the TMD design efforts would
have been complete after investigating the wind-induced performance. Instead, the most difficult TMD design
aspect was that of handling the seismicity of the region. Due to the differing nature of the building and Pinnacle
devices, from their size, to their proximity to occupants, completely different seismic design approaches have been
taken.

The structural engineer provided assistance by sharing an appropriate number of site-specific seismic ground
acceleration time histories. These records are utilized to determine the elastic building responses in events up to
100 year return periods. For design events of longer return period (e.g. 1000 years, and/or 2500 years), due to the
non-linear (elasto-plastic deformation) structural response, time domain position responses of the floors nearby the
TMD were used to evaluate the nuances of building/TMD interaction. The time domain simulations for these
extreme design periods were performed by the structural engineering using DRAIN2D. A rather small conservatism
is realized by assuming that the TMD does not reduce the response levels during these design events.

Building TMD

In strong seismic events, e.g. those with return periods up to 100 years, the designed response characteristics of the
building TMD are quite tame. The steel ring and lower set of 8 dampers, shown in Figure 1 on the floor at elevation
374m, is a secondary system (named a “snubber ring”) designed to engage the TMD only at relative amplitudes
which exceed 1m. While the primary structural response remains linear in seismic events of this strength, the
recruitment of this secondary set of VDDs becomes highly nonlinear.

To address this computational challenge, a complete kinematic model was assembled to determine the behaviours
of TMD/snubber ring collisions, and the sub-linear force-velocity damping profiles of the connected secondary
VDDs. These lower 8 VDDs are drawn from the rail-freight industry, where low speed collisions between heavy
rail cars are an everyday occurrence. The sub-linear force-velocity profile means that upon contact with the snubber
ring, at higher stroke velocities, the desired damping force is exerted immediately. As the velocities of the bodies
begin to approach each other (a relative velocity approaching zero due to the exerted viscous forces), this preferred
level of viscous damping force is maintained with very little change.

Substantially more difficulty was encountered when contending with the seismic events of 2500 years’ strength.
An interesting observation can be made about the nature of the response of a TMD, tuned only to the first mode of
such a slender structure; as many building modes are excited simultaneously, the TMD is seen to respond very little.
In essence, the TMD remains almost still in an inertial reference frame, while the building oscillates wildly all
around it. In this manner, and due to the phenomenal quantity of energy present in the building during such a strong
earthquake, the front-most issue is one of amplitude control (to prevent collision damage), instead of energy
dissipation.

It was with this in mind that the strength of the snubber system was designed. One difficulty in handling the large
viscous forces induced by the snubber ring is the moment it creates on the TMD mass. When the snubber pin
engages the snubber ring, well below the TMD, high cable loads are induced on one side of the TMD to resist the
overturning of the mass. Conceptually, this occurs as the cables resist the “diving” of the TMD over the snubber
ring. In Figure 6, typical peak loads can be seen to be well in excess of twice the self-weight gravity load of the
TMD. The outcome of these types of simulations were incorporated into the design of the supporting wire rope
cables and other supporting structural components.
 4000

Tension (kN)
2000

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s)

Figure 6: Tension of corner cable group in 2500-year seismic event

Pinnacle TMDs

In the design earthquake the tip of the Taipei 101 Pinnacle is expected to whip back-and forth with peak
accelerations near 14 g (where g is Earth’s standard gravity). Under these circumstances, there is no reasonable role
that a TMD might be designed to accomplish in terms of vibration reduction. The mass ratio of the Pinnacle TMDs,
useful for VIO suppression, and nearly a practical maximum given the dimensions of the Pinnacle structure, is
completely inadequate to the task of moderating the structural response in strong-to-extreme seismic events. Refer
to Figure 7 for a typical illustration of the amplitudes traversed by the Pinnacle tip in a 100-year, completely elastic
response, earthquake.

2
Position (m)

4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Time (s)
X axis
Y axis
Figure 7: Pinnacle tip motions in 100-year seismic event

The usual means of handling such excitation do not work in this environment. Enough clearance cannot be given
to the TMDs’ translations to prevent extreme collisions with the interior of the Pinnacle. Any effort to avoid/restrict
large relative TMD motion by increasing the VDD force/velocity coefficient will have a deleterious effect on the
performance of the TMDs against VIO. It was at last decided to passively “lock out” the Pinnacle TMDs with
robust secondary mechanisms. In this manner, the TMDs will travel as inert mass locked to the Pinnacle structural
system, and avoid any damage that would occur from strong internal collisions - in effect, they will “ride out” the
earthquake.
This operation happens automatically whenever the TMDs exceed a nominal clearance with sufficient kinetic energy
remaining to compress an integrated system of rubber bumpers. “Unlocking”, or freeing this mechanically locked-
out state can be accomplished by a single person upon cessation of the seismic event, with the use of further
integrated hardware. The ground motion sufficient to cause the Pinnacle TMDs to lock out is a Peak Ground
Acceleration (PGA) of approximately 30cm/s2. By this estimate, the manual unlocking of the Pinnacle TMDs may
be required approximately once per year. Most reasonable, a sensor device can be installed to detect this condition
and signal the need for an unlocking operation.

CONCLUSIONS

Designing a passive damping system for both wind and seismic excitation forces the engineer to investigate the
problem from two different viewpoints. Generally, the magnitude of forces in wind events tends to be moderate
for which designing the system components is readily achievable. However, during extended design wind events,
such as typhoons, the amount of energy to dissipated is large and accommodating this within the design can be
difficult. Seismic design considerations are generally the opposite, where the total energy to be dissipated is
generally much than that for wind, whereas dealing with extremes in force and displacement provide significant
challenges for the damping system designer.

Taipei 101, where passive TMDs are being implemented to reduce the effects of wind-induced motion on the
occupants as well as limiting fatigue damage, is an excellent example of how these two different design
considerations are dealt with. By collaborating with both the architect and structural engineer these seemingly
conflicting design requirements are effectively integrated - a physical portrayal of the Yin and Yang.