A lightweight pendulum tuned mass inerter system for enhanced vibration control

Traditional tuned mass dampers (TMDs) have been effectively adopted in engineering structures owing to their reliable vibration control performance. Previous studies demonstrate that the apparent mass amplification effect of inerter devices can significantly reduce the required mass of TMDs while maintaining their vibration control effectiveness. However, this approach lacks an explicit experimental validation. Moreover, existing studies neglect the relationship between the physical implementation mechanisms of inerters and their lightweight control effects. To address these gaps, this study proposes a pendulum tuned mass inerter system (PTMIS), which incorporates an inerter with high apparent mass amplification into a conventional pendulum TMD. This achieves a lighter design without compromising the vibration control efficacy of the tuned-type device. A coupled dynamic model integrating the PTMIS with a single-degree-of-freedom primary system is developed to analyze the influence of the inerter’s apparent mass amplification factor on lightweight vibration control performance. A demand-oriented optimization framework is also introduced. The results indicate that inerter devices with low apparent mass amplification factors in the PTMIS do not sufficiently enable the lightweight control effect. Experimental results demonstrate that under comparable control objectives, PTMIS requires 39 % less tuned mass than a traditional TMD. A case study in a wind turbine application demonstrates that the PTMISs achieve comparable control efficacy to conventional TMDs while reducing the tuned mass by 10–26 % and the mass block displacement amplitude by an average of 17.3 %. This work validates the engineering feasibility of the PTMIS and provides an efficient lightweight vibration control solution for weight-sensitive structures by employing a so-called “replacing mass with inertia” paradigm.