A TMD APPLICATION IN THE SEISMIC IMPROVEMENTS OF AN HISTORICAL CHIMNEY

The paper analyzes the seismic improvement of an historical masonry chimney by the tuned mass dumper (TMD) application. The chimney was built at the beginning of XX century in the northern region in Italy and the mechanical characteristics of the masonry, in terms of elastic modulus and compressive strength, used in the finite element models (FEMs) has been determined by a set of experimental tests. A first FEM is implemented by element beam (FEM 1) a second FEM is implemented by solid elements (FEM 2); in both, two configurations are studied: the chimney without TMD and the chimney with TMD. By a time history analysis the main characteristic of the TMD in the terms of mass, stiffness and damper values are valued and optimized for different positioning of the oscillating mass. Finally, a structural solution for the support of the TMD is proposed.