High Response Performance of a Tuned-Mass Damper for Vibration Suppression of Offshore Platform under Earthquake Loads

Currently, tuned-mass dampers (TMDs) are widely applied to maintain the stability of offshore platforms in hostile environments; however, the stability system of offshore platforms faces considerable challenges under critical earthquake loads of the initial period. Therefore, this study concentrated on the high response performance of a simple passive TMD system, and numerical and experimental investigations were performed using a 1 : 200-scale prototype. The obtained results indicated that the displacement, acceleration, and their power spectral density all decreased significantly for the offshore platform with the TMD system. By further analyses of its high response characteristics, it was validated that the TMD reactions can commence within the first 3 s of earthquake excitation, while the fundamental natural frequency was consistently tuned for the TMD system dependent on the dynamic magnification factor. The evaluation indices also confirmed that this method is effective in reducing the overall vibration level and the maximum peak values of the offshore platform exposed to earthquake excitations, mainly because of its high response characteristics.