Structural vibration mitigation via an inertial amplification mechanism based absorber

This paper proposes a novel passive vibration control system, namely the Inertial Amplification Mechanism-based Absorber (IAM-A), to mitigate unwanted structural vibrations. With the help of the H2 and H∞ optimization methods, closed-form formulas for the design parameters of the proposed IAM-A are obtained. Parametric studies are conducted to evaluate the influence of the design parameters on the vibration mitigation performance of the proposed IAM-A. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to validate the efficiency of the IAM-A. For comparison, time history analyses of a structure with IAM-A, with TMD, and without control under earthquake ground motions are performed. Numerical results confirm that dynamic responses of the primary structure are suppressed when the TMD is introduced. But, the relative displacement responses between the primary structure and the absorber are relatively large. The proposed IAM-A outperforms the TMD. With respect to those of the TMD, dynamic responses of the primary structure with the proposed IAM-A are further suppressed. More importantly, the large relative displacement response of the absorber is reduced by more than half. •A novel passive vibration mitigation device, namely the IAM-A, is proposed.•Closed-form formulas for the design parameters of the IAM-A are obtained.•Effects of the parameters of the IAM-A on its seismic performance are investigated.•Time history results validate the superior performances of the IAM-A.