Performance of Low-Rise RC Buildings with Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLDS) in Presence of Masonry Infill

Low-rise reinforced concrete (RC) buildings are common as dwelling houses in developing nations including the Indian subcontinent. Passive damper in the form of TLDs appear to be promising in seismic mitigation of such buildings. Apart from this, in day-to-day building design, the presence of masonry infill is generally ignored, except its mass. In the present study 1/4th scale 3-storey RC model building has been considered with and without infill panels for investigating the effectiveness of TLDs in vibration mitigation.
A series of experimental tests has been carried out using a unidirectional shaking table under horizontal strong harmonic excitation. In the first phase the response mitigation on bare frame building model in with TLDs has been studied. In the second phase, building with infill panel has been tested incorporating TLDs. The present study shows that substantial response reduction is possible in low-rise RC buildings using TLDs as passive dampers.