Pounding tuned mass damper with constrained layer damping

The pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD), which is a passive vibration control device, has attracted much attention in recent years. However, due to the absence of additional dampers in traditional PTMD, the free vibration of structures cannot always be suppressed quickly. Another limitation for the traditional PTMD is that the primary structure is subjected to a large pounding force that may cause local damage and fatigue. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel PTMD with constrained layer damping (CLD-PTMD) by attaching a damping layer and the constraining layer to the surface of the stiffness element of the PTMD to provide more damping. In the experiment, the influence that the different configuration parameters have on the damping performance of CLD is examined. A shake table test is conducted to investigate the energy dissipation of a CLD-PTMD subjected to harmonic excitation. The FEM model of the CLD beam is established to determine the damping ratio and analyze more parameters. The CLD-PTMD is used for the vibration control of a simulated SDOF structure. The results demonstrate that compared with the traditional PTMD, CLD dissipates more energy than the pounding process. In addition, CLD-PTMD has a lower pounding force and pounding energy than PTMD in free and forced vibration. The free vibration with CLD-PTMD can be suppressed faster. The robustness of CLD-PTMD is better and the control performance of CLD-PTMD is more stable than traditional PTMD.