Improvement of tuned mass damper by using rotational inertia through tuned viscous mass damper

•A new passive vibration control device is proposed.•The device is named rotational inertia double tuned mass damper (RIDTMD).•The RIDTMD is more effective than a TMD having the same mass ratio.•The suppression band of RIDTMD is wider than TMD.•The moving block stroke is nearly the same for RIDTMD and TMD. A new vibration control device called a rotational inertia double-tuned mass damper (RIDTMD) is proposed in this paper. The device consists of a tuned mass damper (TMD) in which the typical viscous damper is replaced with a tuned viscous mass damper. The linear model for a single-degree-of-freedom structure incorporating an RIDTMD, the equations of motion in state-space representations, and the transfer function of the considered model are derived. The optimum design parameters of the system subjected to harmonic load are obtained by using a numeric technique, and the performance of the new device is compared with that of a traditional TMD in terms of frequency response. The strokes of auxiliary masses are also assessed. Based on the results, it is demonstrated that the RIDTMD is more effective than a TMD at the same mass ratio, particularly at excitation frequencies near resonance. Moreover, the suppression band is wider and the moving block stroke is nearly identical for both devices.