J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn.

155 (2016) 174181

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Wind Engineering

and Industrial Aerodynamics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jweia

Mitigation of wind-induced accelerations using Tuned Liquid Column

Dampers: Experimental and numerical studies
Stefano Cammelli a,n, Yin Fai Li b, Sergey Mijorski c
a
BMT Fluid Mechanics Ltd., Teddington, UK
b
BMT Fluid Mechanics Ltd., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
c
SoftSim Consult Ltd., Soa, Bulgaria

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: During the early design stages of a relatively slender 42-storey high-end residential building located in
Received 4 February 2015 the Middle East, a series of High Frequency Force Balance wind tunnel tests highlighted that the highest
Received in revised form occupied oors could experience wind-induced motion which depending on the inherent damping of
20 May 2016
the nished structure had the potential to exceed standard industry occupant comfort criteria. In order
Accepted 2 June 2016
to mitigate these excessive vibrations, a Tuned Liquid Column Damper solution was proposed for this
Available online 17 June 2016
building. The performance prediction and validation of the behaviour of such device involved: an initial
Keywords: campaign of full scale measurements to validate frequencies and inherent damping of the structure near
Tall building aerodynamics completion; a series of shake table tests employing a 1:20 scale physical model; and a nal full scale
High-frequency Force Balance
extrapolation study using Computational Fluid Dynamics. The damper study, which this technical paper
Wind-induced vibrations
is focused on, was part of a wider range of wind engineering consultancy services which included: wind
Occupant comfort
Auxiliary damping device climate study; pedestrian and terrace / balcony level wind microclimate study; overall wind loading
Tuned Liquid Column Damper study and faade pressure study.
Computational Fluid Dynamics & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In order to enhance the capacity of a structure to dissipate
energy, and therefore be able for example to mitigate any ex-
cessive wind-induced motion, auxiliary damping can be in-
troduced within the structure itself. The simplest and more robust
types of device that can be employed are the so-called passive
dampers: these systems make use of a moving secondary mass
capable to counteract the motion of the structure. Amongst these,
Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLDs) have become very popular in tall
building design, especially during the course of the last decades
(Fujino et al. 1992; Kareem, 1990, 1993, Kareem and Tognarelli,
1994; Sakai et al. 1989); the main reasons for their success are:
i. The failure of such systems is virtually impossible;
ii. They are very effective in mitigating wind-induced motion;
iii. Their natural period is very easy to predict and relatively easy
to adjust;
iv. They are inexpensive to build and virtually maintenance-free;
Before their rst applications to ground-based structures (Modi
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: scammelli@bmtfm.com (S. Cammelli).
and Welt, 1987; Tamura et al., 1988), dampers making use of
properly tuned sloshing uid in a container have been employed
in other industries (Bhuta and Koval, 1966; Harris and Crede,
1987).
In civil engineering applications, two types of TLDs are com-
monly utilised: Tuned Sloshing Dampers (TSDs) and Tuned Liquid
Column Dampers (TLCDs). TSDs can be either based around a deep
or shallow water conguration: the shallow water ones dissipate
energy through viscous action and wave breaking mechanism,
whilst the deep water ones typically require bafes or screens to
increase the energy dissipation of the sloshing uid. Un-
fortunately, in deep water TSDs, not the entire mass of water ac-
tively participate as secondary mass (Kareem and Sun, 1987), a
drawback that can be overcome by TLCDs. TLCDs comprise an
auxiliary vibrating system consisting of a column of liquid often
moving in a tube-like container: the restoring force is provided by
gravity, whilst the energy dissipation is achieved through the
bafes installed within the horizontal duct.
Whilst TSDs primarily utilise circular containers for shallow
congurations and rectangular ones for deep water arrangements,
TLCDs typically rely on U-shaped vessels.
Many analytical and experimental modelling techniques for the
preliminary design of TLDs have been developed over the course
of the last decades. The models which have been followed within
the work presented in this technical paper are based on the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2016.06.002
0167-6105/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
equivalent Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) method, more specically:
the work of Kareem and Sun (1987) on the development and
validation of equations that model the TLD behaviour as an
equivalent linear TMD; the research of Sun et al. (1995) on the
development of empirical amplitude-dependant parameters to be
added to the linear TMD equations; the work of Yalla (2001), in-
troducing a sloshingslamming model that takes the effect of
water slamming against tank walls into account; the experimental
work of Tait et al. (2004), validating the coupling between the
non-linear TMD model and the one of a Single Degree of Freedom
(SDOF) structure; and the research work of Tait (2008) on the ef-
fect of submerged screens as a linearized equivalent damping ratio
with subsequent integration within the equivalent non-linear TMD
model he developed. With specic emphasis on the performance
evaluation of TLCDs during their preliminary design phase, Di
Matteo et al. (2014) recently proposed a new formula that allows
the determination of the optimum parameters of a TLCD in a re-
latively quick and straightforward way.
With regard to existing installations, the sizes of TLDs can vary
from relatively compact units typically installed to mitigate
wind-induced sway of air trafc control towers (e.g. the cylindrical
multi-layered TSD units installed on the 42 m tall Nagasaki Airport
Tower, totalling 950 kg, which reduced the structural response to
wind of about 35% (Tamura et al., 1995), to much larger devices of
several hundred tonnes (e.g. the two TLCDs installed at the top of
the 52-storey Random House Tower in New York City of respec-
tively 265,000 kg and 379,000 kg (Tamboli, 2005).
2. Background
2.1. Site characteristics
The location of the site of the proposed development con-
sidered within this technical paper was approximately 1 km from
the Mediterranean coastline, with the immediate surrounding
area consisting of densely populated low to mid-rise urban sprawl.
2.2. Wind climate analysis
When working in regions of the planet where little information
is available with regard to design wind speeds that is strength as
well as directionality of the extreme wind events purposely site-
specic wind climate analyses need to be undertaken to inform
and support the design process.
The rst step in design wind speed prediction is the acquisition
of long-term surface wind records: as part of the wind engineering
work for the project presented within this technical paper, data
from three weather stations within the region were considered.
The length of the records of each station was in excess of 30 years
and information about thunderstorm events were available: this
allowed thunderstorms to be separated from the entire dataset
and independently analysed from synoptic wind events. Once the
records have undergone quality control checks and after they have
been subjected to appropriate transposition to uniform terrain
category (Engineering Science Data Unit, 2006), a mixed-climate
extreme value analysis was performed.
While the origin of extreme value analysis is more than fty
years old (Gumbel, 1958), more sophisticated approaches that
consider in greater detail the meteorological phenomena behind
the different types of storm mechanisms have been developed
during the course of more recent years (Lieblein, 1974; Gomes and
Vickery, 1978; Cook, 1982; Harris, 1999; Cook et al., 2003). For the
project presented within this technical paper, the analysis method
of Cook et al. (2003) was utilised.
The 50-yr return period mean-hourly basic wind speed for the
175
region was found to be
25 m/s (10 m reference height in
z0 0.03 m), whilst the characteristic product of the local wind
climate was found to be
4.
2.3. Building characteristics
The height of the building was
180 m, with a

22 m 
44 m rectangular typical oor plan (the slenderness
ratio of the building in its weak axis was
1:9). The unconven-
tional massing of the building features four superimposed and
zigzagging volumes rising between two existing tall buildings.
The structural stiffness, in relation to horizontal loading, was
provided by a central reinforced concrete (RC) core. The structural
frequencies of the three fundamental modes of vibration of the
building predicted by the Finite Element (FE) model developed by
the structural engineering rm working on this project were:
0.19 Hz, 0.26 Hz and 0.53 Hz, with the rst two describing pure
sway of the structure along the two principal axes of the central
core (the exponent of these mode shapes was
1.5) and the third
one being torsional. In the investigation of the win-induced re-
sponse of tall buildings only the rst three fundamental modes of
vibration of the structure are typically considered: higher order
modes can become relevant especially in the assessment of the
wind-induced accelerations only in the realm of super-tall
buildings (H 4300 m), especially for tapered forms (Cammelli and
Wyatt, 2011).
The density of the building was of the order of 400 Kg/m3 and
the level of eccentricity of the centre of gravity of each oor plate
along the vertical development of the structure was contained
within 75 m.
3. On-site full scale measurements
When the construction of the super-structure of the tower
approached its completion and before commencement of the
installation of the cladding, a campaign of on-site full scale mea-
surements was conducted to detect some of the key structural
parameters of the building, particularly structural frequencies and
damping.
In order to achieve this, the 34th level of the tower was in-
strumented with a pair of tri-axial high performance accel-
erometers (measurement range: 7 1.5 g and resolution:
0.00005 g) with the aim of acquiring a large number of ambient
data records. Before commencement of post-processing, the dif-
ferent time-histories of recorded wind-induced accelerations was
digitally low-pass ltered at a frequency of 1 Hz to remove high-
frequency noise content which due to the nature of the site
have inevitably been picked up during the measurements: as al-
ready pointed out in Section 2.3, this process is perfectly licit as
the contribution of the higher modes of vibration of the structure
to the total wind-induced acceleration of the building is negligible.
The different time-histories have then been analysed making
use of the so-called random decrement (RD) technique (Tamura
et al., 2000; Li et al., 1998, 2003), which enabled the random and
chaotic part embedded in the actual measured signals associated
with the excitation from the atmospheric turbulence to be fully
removed, revealing the far more regular signature left by the
structure itself.
Subsequently, a time domain (output only) modal identication
(MI) routine (Tamura, 2005) was applied to the RD signatures in
order to identify the frequencies and damping of the building
during construction. The rst two modes of vibration of the
structure have been found well aligned with the two principal
axes of the structural core of the building and their frequencies
(
0.30 Hz for the weak axis and
0.43 Hz for the strong one) in
176 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
Fig. 1. Example of RD signature with the associated sinusoidal t obtained through
the MI process.
very good agreement with the numerical predictions of the FE
model for the specic construction stage the building was at
during monitoring.
The level of inherent structural damping associated with these
two modes of vibration of the structure was found to be in the
region of
1.0% of critical. It should be noted that during the
period of monitoring the strength of the wind storms that passed
through the region was lower than what expected for a typical
1-yr return period event.
Fig. 1 shows an example of RD signature alongside with the
associated sinusoidal t obtained through the MI process.
4. Concept design of the TLCD
The wind tunnel techniques typically employed in the in-
vestigation of the wind-induced response of tall and super-tall
buildings are: the High Frequency Force Balance (HFFB) technique;
the Simultaneous Pressure Integration technique; and the aero-
elastic technique.
The HFFB technique is very well established. Originally con-
ceptualised as a technique capable to directly measure the wind
generalised forces acting on tall structures with linear and non-
three-dimensional mode shapes, its original framework (Tschanz
and Davenport, 1983) signicantly evolved during the course of
the last decades in order to be able to exibly cope with buildings
having complex geometric shapes/non-uniform inertial and stiff-
ness distribution with more three-dimensional natural modes of
vibration (Kareem, 1985; Vickery et al., 1985; Flay et al., 1999;
Holmes 2003).
Due to the high speed of construction of HFFB models, a HFFB
boundary layer wind tunnel study was performed in one of BMT
Fluid Mechanics (www.bmtfm.com) large facilities during the
early stages of the design of the tall building presented within this
technical paper. A close-up view of the wind tunnel model of the
tall building is shown in Fig. 2.
A detailed review of the HFFB wind tunnel tests results re-
vealed that the motion along the weak direction of the building
was the key contributor to the peak wind-induced acceleration. It
was also estimated that, in order to achieve the desired level of
occupant comfort at the highest occupied levels of the building
for both the more frequent (1-yr return period) and the less fre-
quent (10-yr return period) wind events, a total damping of
2.0%
Fig. 2. Close-up of wind tunnel model.
of critical in the rst mode of vibration of the structure was re-
quired: this meant that supplementary damping was required. It
should be noted that the HFFB technique does not allow for the
aerodynamic damping to be measured in the wind tunnel and
therefore taken into account during post-processing: in the au-
thors experience the additional contribution to the total damping
coming from the aerodynamics for a building of this size can be
certainly considered negligible.
A Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) solution for the building was
ruled out right from the start due to cost. In order to meet the
design, installation and operational budgeted costs for the aux-
iliary damping device, a number of different TLD solutions were
examined. A TLCD conguration based on the traditional
U-shaped arrangement was nally selected against a TSD-based
solution. The main reasons for this were:
i. Greater degree of compactness (the inactive mass in the di-
rection of the motion to be controlled is rather small);
ii. Greater effectiveness (the entire water contained within the
horizontal duct works in counteracting the wind-induced
motion);
iii. Greater degree of predictability (wave breaking mechanism is
almost absent and the effect of uid viscosity not as central as
in the TSD concept);
It was estimated that the damping system employed would
require a total effective mass of
80,000 kg, equating to
0.5% of
the modal mass of the rst mode of vibration of the structure, and
a natural frequency
99.5% of the rst mode frequency of the
building. These estimates were made assuming an efciency of the
damping device of
75%. Deviation from zero main damping was
also duly taken into consideration during the concept design.
The above estimates and considerations led to the selection of
two identical TLCDs, congured as U-shaped vessels, to be in-
stalled just below the roof level of the building.
The internal dimensions (i.e. exclusive of the thickness of the
RC wall) of one of the two identical TLCDs are reported in Table 1
Table 1
Internal dimensions of one of the two identical
TLCDs.
Dimensions (mm)
Length of the U-tube, Lo 7600
Internal width of each riser, W 1650
Internal breadth of the TLCD, B 4925
Internal height of the horizontal duct, H 1100
Internal free board in each riser, R 900
 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
Fig. 3. Internal arrangement of one of the two identical TLCDs.
below:
The overall arrangement of one of the TLCD is illustrated in
Fig. 3.
It was estimated that the internal headroom for sloshing dR
during a typical 10-yr return period wind event was
1 m. It
should be noted that the number and location of the required
internal bafes was at that stage of the design only indicative.
Fig. 4 shows the footprint of the two identical TLCDs within the
oor plan of the building.
5. Detail design of the TLCD physical model testing
The concept design of the damper was tested in the 6 degree-
of-freedom shake table facility of the Department of Civil En-
gineering of the University of Bristol (www.bristol.ac.uk). The aim
of the model testing was not only to verify the key resulting
parameters of the concept design but also to derive the optimal
geometry and arrangement of the bafes within the TLCD itself.
5.1. Experimental setup
A 1:20 model of the damper was constructed in Plexiglass. The
overall dimensions of the model were: 463 mm (length), 246 mm
(width) and 150 mm (height).
The construction of the damper allowed up to ve inter-
changeable porous screens to be inserted within its horizontal
duct. The working uid in the model was water. The model
damper was mounted on the shake table via a piezoelectric load
cell (see Fig. 5). The motion of the shake table was programmed
Fig. 4. Footprint of the two identical TLCDs.
177
Fig. 5. Experimental setup of the 1:20 TLCD model.
according to the solution of the equation of motion of the rst
mode of the actual building at various levels of structural damping
computed based on wind tunnel measurements. The motion of the
shake table itself was measured simultaneously with the load cell
signal using non-contact displacement transducers.
5.2. Results and discussions
In order to accelerate the process of extraction of the equivalent
damping ratio from the quantities measured during the shake
table experiment, a rather novel framework described in the
paragraphs below was developed. It should be noted that this
approach did not require the free water surface level within the
vertical ducts of the TLCD to be measured during the experiment.
It was noticed that the energy dissipated within the model of
the U-shaped vessel could be derived from the simultaneous
measurements of the reaction force at the base of the damper (at
the interface between the actual base of the vessel and the oor
slab) and the motion of the oor slab the damper was directly
connected to (see following Eq. (1)).
W= F ( t )dx = F ( t )x( t )dt (1)
where F ( t ), x( t ), x( t ) respectively denote the time-histories of the
reaction force (at the interface between the base of the TLCD and
the oor slab), of the displacement (of the oor slab the TLCD is
rigidly connected to) and of the time derivative of the displace-
ment (i.e., the velocity). The equivalent damping ratio of the TLCD,
i.e. the damping ratio of a non-viscous device that would dissipate
the same amount of energy per cycle of vibration as a perfectly
viscous device at the same amplitude, can be dened as follows:
F ( t )x( t )dt = ceqx 2 ( t )dt = 2eqmdx 2 ( t )dt
F ( t )x( t )dt 1 F ( t )x( t )dt 1 Fx
2
eq = 2
= =
2mdx ( t )dt 2md x 2 ( t )dt 2md x2 (2)
2
where eq, m , d , Fx , x2 respectively are the equivalent damping
ratio of the TLCD expressed as fraction of critical, the effective
moving mass of the TLCD ( HLoB in kg), the natural circular fre-
quency of the TLCD ( ( 2gH )/( LeW ) in rad/s) with Le being the
equivalent length of the TLCD ( Lo + ( H + 2R)( H /W ) in m), the
covariance between the reaction force and the velocity of the oor
slab (in N m/s) and the variance of the velocity of the oor slab
(m2/s2). It should be noted that the measured ratio of the two
covariances is not dimensionless and had therefore to be
178 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181

Fig. 6. TLCD performance curves (75% porous bafes).

converted to full scale in order for the equation above to apply. A

2 2
dimensional analysis revealed that the scaling of the (Fx / x ) term
would follow the geometric scale of the model raised to the power
of 2.5, i.e.:

NRL2.5 Fx
2

eq =
2md x2 (3)

where RL and N are the geometric scale and the number of TLCDs
installed in the building. Eq. (3) therefore represents a direct re-
lationship between the equivalent damping ratio of the full scale
2
damper system and the model scale (Fx / x2 ) term, which was di-
rectly measured during the model scale experiments as a function
of standard deviation of the excitation displacement.
In the case of a TLCD installed on a building with xed struc-
tural frequencies and inherent damping, the standard deviation of
excitation amplitude during a wind event is controlled by total
system damping, which is in turn contributed signicantly by the
added damping of the TLCD itself.
Fig. 6 plots the equivalent added damping ratio versus total
system damping. It is clear from this graph that for all congura-
tions of porous bafes tested, the equivalent damping generally
increased with excitation magnitude, or decreased total damping.
Congurations with a larger number of porous bafes generally
showed higher energy dissipation at low amplitude, as more en-
ergy was dissipated when water moved across the screens. While,
on the other hand, congurations with many bafes had the po-
tential to prohibit the build-up of vibration amplitude of the water,
hence hindering the damping performance.
The actual damping performance, taking into account the in-
herent damping of the structure, is denoted in Fig. 6 by the in-
tersection points between the different bafe congurations and
the different levels of inherent damping. From this plot it is clear
that both the 3 bafes and the 5 bafes congurations gave rise
to an equivalent damping ratio of
1.2% of critical which to-
gether with a
1.0% of inherent structural damping corre-
sponded to
2.0% of critical of total system damping.
The geometrical arrangement of the best performing bafe
arrangement (75% porous) is presented in Fig. 7.
5.3. Comparison with the solution of 2DOF equation of motion
In order to further inspect and understand the measured re-
sults in terms of total system damping performance, the time
domain solution of equation of motion based on Clough and
Penzien (1993) for the rst mode has been extended as follows to
a 2 degree-of-freedom (2DOF) system to incorporate the addition
of the TLCD:
Fig. 7. Arrangement of a 75% porous bafe (dimensions in millimetres).
( 2
)
1 + j j ( z ) p j ( t ) + j j( z )x d( t ) + 2 jjpj ( t )
1
+2j pj ( t ) = f ( t)
Mj j
x d( t ) + 2ddxd ( t ) + m 2
xd( t ) = j( z )p j ( t )
(4)
where j is the mass ratio ( m /Mj ) with Mj being the jth modal
mass of the building, j( z ) the jth mode shape of the structure at
the height of the building z where the TLCD is installed, pj ( t ) the
time history of the jth modal displacement of the structure of the
building, xd( t ) the time history of the relative displacement of the
uid within the horizontal duct of the TLCD, j the inherent
damping ratio (fraction of critical) of the structure of the building
in the jth mode of vibration, j the jth circular frequency of the
structure, f j ( t ) the jth modal force acting on the building and d the
internal damping ratio of the TLCD (fraction of critical).
In order to solve the equation of motion in the time domain the
knowledge of the internal damping of the TLCD is required.
The internal damping of the damper system with optimal bafe
conguration was evaluated via a series of free decay model
testing. The free decay of base shear force was measured after the
damper was subjected to a step excitation. The internal damping
was calculated by applying the logarithmic decay to the measured
time histories. It was found that the damping generally reduces
with amplitude and, for the operating conditions here examined
(10-yr return period wind event), the damping is of the order of

3.7% 3.9% of critical. A sample of a free decay time history is
shown in Fig. 8 with damping estimates for different section of the
time history.
The 2DOF equation of motion was solved for the measured
wind excitation, damping ratio and frequency of the TLCD for each
time step and the response, with and without the TLCD, is
 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
Fig. 8. Example of free decay force time history of the physical model of the TLCD.
Fig. 9. Solutions of the equation of motion in the time domain, with and without
TLCD.
presented in Fig. 9. The peak acceleration response of the primary
mass, i.e. the building itself, has reduced from
21.5 millig to

15.5 millig, which based on the square root relationship be-
tween the ratio of the two damping levels is equivalent to an
increase in total system damping from
1.0% of critical to
1.9%
of critical: from a control point of view, this equates to nearly a
30% increased performance of the structural response of the
building to wind loading excitation.
6. Detail design of the TLCD Computational Fluid Dynamics
study
The 1:20 scale physical model testing inevitably left the authors
of this technical paper with some uncertainties over the potential
for scale effects to affect the performance of the full scale TLCDs. In
order to try to quantify these, a number of Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) studies have been undertaken.
6.1. Analysis software
The HELYXs, a comprehensive general purpose CFD software
solution for engineering analysis and optimisation based around
ENGYSs (www.engys.com) own enhanced version of the Open-
FOAMs library, was used for the study. OpenFOAMs is an open
source CFD package which has gained a large user base in com-
mercial and academic applications which features a wide variety
of validated solvers in the area of oscillatory and sloshing ow.
6.2. Geometry and grid
The numerical work was focused on a single TLCD, the internal
volume of which was discretised with a 3D structured mesh. Areas
179
of particular interest, such as the regions around each bafe, were
modelled with a higher level of discretisation.
The selection of the size of the mesh to be utilised in the CFD
simulations was the result of an initial Grid Independent Study
(GIS) performed on ve different levels of discretisation of the
internal volume of the TLCD at the geometrical scale of 1:20. The
total number of cells in the ve models studied was approxi-
mately: 100,000, 230,000, 450,000, 1,000,000 and 1,700,000. The
results of the Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS)
simulations in terms of total reaction force at the base of the
TLCD showed a good level of agreement, especially between the
top three nest models above. The total number of cells for the
nally chosen model was therefore approximately 450,000 (for
both scaled and full scale simulations), with a maximum and
minimum full scale grid size of approximately 70 mm and 1 mm
respectively.
Fig. 10 shows the complete structured mesh of a single TLCD.
Highlighted in this perspective view are the regions open to at-
mospheric pressure (at the top of the two vertical ducts) and the
regions of high mesh density near the bafes (within the hor-
izontal duct).
6.3. Porous regions
The bafes were modelled as anisotropic porous regions using
the Darcy-Forchheimer approach: this model is the most widely
used porosity model available in CFD codes (ENGYSs, 2015) as it
makes use of an additional source term in the momentum equa-
tions to account for the losses generated by a specic porous
component.
This model is composed of two parts: a viscous loss term
known as the Darcy permeability (rst term on the right hand side
of Eq. (5)) as well as an inertial loss term known as the For-
chheimer term (second term on the right hand side of Eq. (5)):
3
3
Si= D Uj + j
FijUU
j = 1 ij
j=1 (5)
where Si is the volumetric source term added to the momentum
equations of the bafe zones, Dij and Fij are the prescribed porous
media tensors, m is uid dynamic viscosity, is uid density, Uj is
the jth component of the velocity vector, and U is the velocity
magnitude.
6.4. Boundary conditions
Rough walls with a no-slip condition (u, v, w0) were assumed
for all internal surfaces. A turbulent viscous wall function and a full
scale equivalent sand grain roughness height of 0.025 mm were
used to simulate the surface roughness of the smooth-nish con-
crete walls in the full scale simulations of the TLCD. The lateral
pressure release openings were modelled as constant atmospheric
pressure openings in the CFD grid.
6.5. Turbulence model
The standard RANS k turbulence model was employed in the
CFD simulations when assessing the internal ow of the water
tank in order to capture the sloshing phenomenon, the recircula-
tion and the eddy phenomenon (such as the recirculation near the
inside corners as illustrated in Fig. 11). This turbulence model is
one of the most widely used one in CFD as it is capable to offer a
good balance between computational speed and accuracy. Like all
turbulence models the standard RANS k turbulence has its
own advantages (e.g. main stream ow approximation) and
weaknesses (e.g. ow separation approximation). A more detailed
180 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
Fig. 10. Perspective view of the spatial mesh.
Fig. 11. Recirculation near the internal corner of the TLCD.
comparison between different RANS turbulent models can be
found in Menter (2011).
Detached Eddy Simulations (DES) or Large Eddy Simulations
(LES) can in principle achieve higher levels of accuracy but, un-
fortunately, this comes with a much higher computational cost
and therefore with signicantly longer timescales, which are often
not compatible with the commercial nature of consultancy work.
6.6. Solver
OpenFOAMs's interDyMFoam solver was used for the study.
This solver is compatible with 2-phase, isothermal, in-
compressible, immiscible ows. InterDyMFoam uses a nite vo-
lume approach to represent the Navier-Stokes equations, in which
each cell in the computational mesh is assigned a single value for
each uid property (i.e. velocity and pressure) that represents the
average of these properties over the whole volume of the cell.
This particular liquid-gaseous interface tracking algorithm in
OpenFOAMs is an implementation of the ux corrected transport
called Multidimensional Universal Limiter for Explicit Solution
(MULES), a method described in details in Marquez Damian
(2013).
6.7. Methodology
A 1:20 scale numerical model was initially set-up with the aim
of generating results which could have been directly compared
Fig. 12. Streamlines under free decay motion.
with the ones obtained from the physical model testing campaign.
A number of mesh independence studies was conducted to de-
termine an optimal computational mesh, as well as to locate po-
tential areas which would benet from mesh renement (e.g. re-
gions in which vortices and recirculation were expected, see
Fig. 12). Once the 1:20 numerical model was nalised, the results
were compared to experimental shake table results before per-
forming full scale computational analysis.
The free-decay logarithmic decrement approach was used to
quantify the performance of each simulated TLCD. This method
included the excitation of the CFD model with a sinusoidal input
wave until the system reached a periodic steady state. The forced
movement of the TLCD was then stopped, and the decay of the
overall net force was measured over time. The net force measured
included the contribution from dynamic pressure acting on the
walls and bafes of the TLCD in the direction of the rst mode of
vibration of the structure.
Comparison of damping performance (3 bafes conguration),
as simulated in CFD and experimentally gathered in the shake
table experiments (
4.24.5% and
3.73.9% respectively), was
satisfactory given the complex nature of unsteady multi-phase
ow (see Fig. 13).
Numerically computed studies on a full scale TLCD showed that
the damping of the device itself during operating conditions (10-yr
return period wind event) decreased by
10%. This was believed
to be due to the different physics controlling the energy dissipa-
tion at the two scales: at model scale, in fact, the contribution
coming from viscous forces is expecting to be larger than at full
scale where, on the other hand, damping at full scale will be more
dominated by inertial forces and recirculation within the TLCD.
 S. Cammelli et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 155 (2016) 174181
Fig. 13. Example of free decay force time history of the model TLCD, CFD vs.
physical testing.
7. Conclusions
This technical paper deals with the mitigation of the wind-in-
duced vibrations of a 42-storey residential tall building through
the implementation of the TLD technology.
With the introduction of a pair of identical purposely designed
TLCDs, a
30% increase performance of the structural response of
the building to wind loading excitation has been achieved: from a
control standpoint, this signicant improvement enabled the tower
to meet the criteria for residential occupancy set for the project.
It is felt that the multi-disciplinary approach here presented
merging the operational modal analysis of the building with a
multi-step detailed CFD study of the TLD offers an appreciable
and comprehensive perspective on how this structural and in-
dustrial meta-problem has been successful tackled during the
execution of this commercial project.
The multi-disciplinary nature of the technical approach pre-
sented within this paper, together with the thorough assessment
of scale effects between model and full scale numerical models,
almost certainly represent the key improvements here achieved
against the existing literature on the subject of TLCD.
The tall building presented within this technical paper was deliv-
ered to the market early in 2013 and since then no complains in re-
lation to occupant comfort have been reported. Unfortunately at
present (May 2016) there are still no plans to undertake any long-term
monitoring of the building to validate the performance of the TLCDs.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this paper would like to thank Dr John Macdonald
from the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Bristol
for his support during the course of the physical model testing cam-
paign and Professor Michael Graham from the Department of Aero-
nautics of the Imperial College London as well as Francisco Campos &
Andrew Jackson at ENGYSs for their input in the CFD work.
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