A Review on Supplementary Damping Systems in Tall Buildings

All buildings are innovative solutions to accommodate the increasing human population in small land areas. Wind-induced vibrations are quite significant in tall buildings. Increasing the stiffness of tall buildings could end up in uneconomical designs. To add supplemental damping supplemental to the system damping, passive vibration control devices like tuned mass/liquid dampers require no external power and work based on the structure’s natural oscillation frequency. All these passive vibration control devices are not accurate in tuning to the structure’s natural frequency. Hence, active vibration control devices like active tuned mass dampers use sensors and actuators to sense the motion of the structure and apply the required external force to the system, respectively, and need an external power source. Semi-active vibration control devices receive the required force through inertia, requiring minimum external energy, and hybrid vibration control devices are used by combining active and passive control devices. In this paper, the history of the evolution of these damping systems and their pros and cons has been reviewed. Also, the future directions for developing damping systems, like fluid–structure coupling that performs well in wind-induced vibrations, are discussed.