effects of the design configuration on the performance of compartmental particle dampers

The effect of the container’s configuration on the performance of particle dampers is investigated considering different levels of random excitation. a single-story structure with low fundamental frequency with an attached particle damper was used for the experimental investigation. in all experiments, the same particles were used, placed in one layer. different configurations of the container were examined considering dampers with either a single or two compartments. considerable reduction in the structure’s response was observed when a single compartment was used with filling area ratio (defined as the corresponding squares around the projected spherical particles over the area of the compartment) equal to 60% for all excitation levels used. similar results were obtained when the particles and the container were divided in equal parts while keeping the filling area ratio in each compartment at 60%. at large filling area ratios, the single-compartment damper was ineffective at the highest excitation level used while the damper with the two equal size compartments was ineffective for all excitation levels. when unequal compartment sizes were used, the damper was efficient when the filling area ratio was in the range of 50–70% for all excitation levels. © 2022, iran university of science and technology.