Study on the Mechanical Properties of a High‐Force Inerter Damper: Experimental Investigation

Inerter damper is a two‐end‐point acceleration‐type damper with significant mass amplification and negative stiffness characteristics, which has been widely studied in recent years. However, the inertance and inertia force of the current inerter dampers are relatively small, and their relevant energy dissipation mechanisms are still unclear, which limits their application in large‐scale structures (such as civil engineering structures). In view of these, this study firstly proposed a high‐force inerter damper (HFID), and its basic working principles were clarified. Subsequently, a typical HFID was designed and manufactured. On this basis, the hysteretic behaviors of the HFID were tested and analyzed. Finally, a theoretical constitutive model for the HFID was proposed. And multibody dynamic models of the HFID and SDOF‐HFID were developed based on ADAMS, as well as validated by the experimental and numerical results. The results showed that due to the large inertance of the HFID, the inertia force of the HFID was highly sensitive to the external high‐frequency disturbances, and the relevant inertia force was provided by the combined action of several high‐order frequencies. The inertia force of the HFID measured in the test could easily reach 40 kN with a loading frequency and displacement of 1.8 Hz and 8 mm, which can certainly be applied to civil engineering structures. In addition, the loading frequency was a primary factor governing the HFID’s performance. As the loading frequency increased, the hysteresis curve evolved from a parallelogram to parallelogram‐harmonic superposition and then to a negative‐stiffness quadrilateral, indicating the energy dissipation mechanism transformed from friction to inertial impedance, with greatly improved energy dissipation capacity. Moreover, the theoretical constitutive model and multibody dynamics model based on ADMAS could theoretically reproduce the hysteresis performance of the HFID under a single frequency or broader band excitation. And the numerical results further demonstrated that the HFID can exhibit remarkable vibration reduction effects and favorable robustness on the dynamic response of civil engineering structures.