Research on wind-induced vibrations in our group has thus far dealt with primarily two aspects, both related to vibration control: (i) condition assessment of in-service tuned mass dampers (TMDs) and (ii) development of adaptive pendulum TMDs. These two issues were motivated through extensive field monitoring programs we conducted on the Apron Control Tower, located at Pearson International airport in Toronto, beginning in 2008. The fundamental issue we attempted to answer initially was whether the pendulum TMDs installed on the Apron Tower were performing as originally envisioned by the designers. The first difficulty we encountered was our inability to adequately arrest the motion of the two 25,000 kg masses on the tower. This meant that we needed to develop new ways to quantify the performance of the TMDs without arresting them. In the process, we were able to better model and understand the three-dimensional nature of pendulum TMDs and its effect on on the response of the flexible tower, and to develop a new way to undertake its condition assessment while under service without restraining the TMD motion. Finally, we developed an intelligent adaptive pendulum TMD which can tune itself to a limited range of optimal tuning values and conducted laboratory tests on this system. Main results from this work can be found in the following references.
