Energy analysis of an inerter‐enhanced floating floor structure (In‐FFS) under seismic loads

Abstract

To improve the seismic responses of the traditional floating floor structure (FFS), an inerter-enhanced FFS, namely the In-FFS, was recently proposed by the authors. The multifold improvements offered by the In-FFS compared to the FFS have been investigated based on the seismic responses analysis. In this work, the superior performances of the In-FFS are investigated and demonstrated based on the energy analysis method. It is found that, thanks to the dynamic equivalent mass effect of the inerter, the input energy of the entire system under seismic inputs is suppressed. Compared with the conventional frame structure (FS), the maximum mechanical energy of the primary structure is reduced by around 75% and 80% for the FFS and In-FFS, respectively. As a result, dynamic responses of