Dynamics of shear frames with tuned liquid column dampers

Tuned liquid column dampers (TLCD) are passive energy absorbing devices to control vibrations of buildings placed e.g. in an earthquake environment. The objective of this paper is the study of the influence of TLCD on the response of shear frames. For the analysis the TLCD are modeled as SDOF oscillators. For the linear system an analytical optimisation is given, based on a decomposition into substructure modes of the shear frame. To determine the quality of the analytical solution a numerical optimisation is performed. The results indicate a good agreement between the outcome of both optimization methods and indicate as well that TLCD reduce the response of earthquake excited buildings quite effectively.