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Dynamic characterization of fractional oscillators for
Fractional Tuned Mass Dampers tuning
Giorgio Barone, Francesco Lo Iacono, Giacomo Navarra
Facoltà di Ingegneria ed Architettura
Università degli Studi di Enna “Kore”
Enna, Italy
Abstract—A novel formulation for Fractional Tuned Mass
Damper (FTMD) devices is proposed in this paper. The FTMD is
realized by connecting an oscillating mass to the main structure
using a viscoelastic link, realized through elastomeric rubber
bearings with fractional derivative constitutive model. A new
function, labeled Damped Fractional Frequency, is defined for
the fractional oscillator as the analogous of the damped
frequency for classic single oscillators. Then, a critical value for
the fractional order derivative involved in the damper
constitutive law is defined as the limit value for which the DFF is
real. It is shown that prevalent elastic or viscous dynamic
behaviours are observed for the fractional oscillator when the
fractional order derivative assumes values smaller or greater
than the critical value, respectively. Finally, the DFF concept is
utilized to opportunely tune the FTMD to its main structure,
analogously to classic Tuned Mass Damper devices. Applications
to a system excited by stochastic loads are presented, using the
classic tools of stochastic analysis to determine the system
response statistics and measure the performance of the FTMD.
Keywords—fractional calculus; Tuned Mass Dampers;
elastomeric bearings; Damped Fractional Frequency.
I. INTRODUCTION
Passive control systems and, among them, Tuned Mass
Dampers (TMD) have received great attention both in civil
and mechanical engineering ([1]-[4]). While the initial theory
of TMDs was limited to application on undamped Single
the fractional oscillator. A critical value for the fractional
derivative order inherent to the definition of the DFF is
determined, and it is shown that such value can be seen as the
limit between prevalent elastic behaviour and prevalent
viscous behaviour of the fractional oscillator. Based on the
previous observations and taking advantage of classic tuning
procedures for regular TMDs, design criteria for the FTMD
are proposed. The effectiveness of the FTMD concept and of
the proposed tuning procedure is tested on a SDOF system
excited by stochastic loads, studied by using classic tools of
stochastic analysis.
II. FRACTIONAL CONSTITUTIVE LAW OF ELASTOMERIC
RUBBER BEARINGS
Elastomeric rubber bearings are composed of rubber layers
interposed between steel shims, with consequent large vertical
stiffness and low horizontal one (Fig. 1). In order to define a
relationship among the bearing geometrical properties and its
damping coefficient, the bearing itself is considered subjected
only to shear forces. Experimental data on relaxation tests,
measuring the loss of stress in time for an imposed constant
unitary deformation, shows that the resulting stress history can
be easily modeled by a power law relaxation function G(t) as
follows:
C
E E
Degree Of Freedom (SDOF) systems subjected to  G t  ˜t 0 d E d 1 
deterministic loads, several researchers have investigated * 1  E 
extensions to damped systems and stochastic loads ([2]-[6]).
Moreover, viscoelastic attachments, such as elastomeric
rubber bearings or fluid viscous dampers, can be used for
enhancing the damping in the device, and their constitutive
laws can be often modeled by using fractional derivatives ([7]-
[15]). In this paper, in particular, elastomeric rubber bearings
with fractional constitutive law are proposed to link an
oscillating mass with the main structure to realize Fractional
Tuned Mass Dampers (FTMD). The fractional viscoelastic
constitutive model of the device is discussed, taking into
account the multi-layered structure of elastomeric bearings.
Then, in order to develop a tuning procedure for the FTMD, a
new dynamic characterization of the fractional oscillator is
proposed, by defining its Damper Fractional Frequency. The
latter is herein defined by analyzing the transfer function of Fig. 1. Elastomeric rubber bearing section.

978-1-4799-2591-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

where *(.) is the Euler Gamma function, and the other two
parameters can be obtained by a best fitting procedure of the
experimental data. By taking into account the Boltzmann
superposition principle, the stress history W(t) for an assigned
strain history J(t) is determined as:

t
 W t  ³ G  t  t  J  t  dt  
0

By combining (1) and (2), the shear stress history can be

expressed as:
Fig. 2. Fractional oscillator

 W  t  CE  C D0E J   t  0 d E d 1 
  In order to develop a tuning procedure for a FTMD
according to the classic theory for TMD devices, a novel
that is the stress history is proportional to the Caputo’s Damper Fractional Frequency (DFF) is herein introduced. In
fractional derivative of the deformation history: particular, the DFF is the frequency returning a relative
maximum for the square absolute modulus of the fractional
oscillator transfer function Hs(Z), in the positive domain
1 Z > 0. To determine the DFF in closed form, first the
  t 
t
t  t  J  t  dt
E
 D0E J ³  
C

* 1  E  0 expression of the fractional oscillator transfer function is

required:
By substituting E =0 in (3) the pure elastic behaviour is
obtained, while E=1 returns the constitutive law of purely 1
viscous fluids. The constitutive law of the entire device can be  H S Z   
K  iZ   Z 2
E
derived assuming that displacements along the z direction are
hindered, the shear force acts in the x direction, and the
resulting strain is uniformly distributed along the cross-section Evaluation of the first derivative with respect to Z of the
and in each interlayer. Hence, the relation between the shear square absolute value of (7), considering only the positive
force T and the displacement s(t) at the top of the device can domain, leads to:
be written as:
w H S Z  2 ª 2Z 4  K 2 EZ 2 E  K  2  E  Z 2  E cos SE 2  ¼º
2
  ¬ Z ! 0  
ACE wZ Z ª¬Z 4  K 2Z 2 E  2KZ 2  E cos SE 2  º¼
2

 
t
T t  t  t  s  t  dt D0E s  t   
E

nh* 1  E  ³
C
CE
0

The DFF Zs is then obtained by imposing that (8) is null,

where A is the cross-section area, h the interlayer thickness, returning the following solutions:
and n the total number of elastomeric platelets.
1
III. FRACTIONAL OSCILLATOR AND DAMPED FRACTIONAL § 2KE · 2 E
FREQUENCY Z min ¨ ¸
¨ a  a 2  8E ¸
© ¹
In this section, a fractional Single Degree of Freedom  1
 
(SDOF) system is considered. The fractional oscillator is § · 2 E
composed by a mass m connected to a moving support through 2KE
Z max Zs ¨ ¸
a fractional device having characteristic parameters CE and E ¨ a  a 2  8E ¸
© ¹
(Fig. 2). The equilibrium equation of the mass can be written
in the form: where a = (2+E) cos(SE/2), Zmin is the relative minimum of
the transfer function square absolute value and Zmax = Zs is the
DFF. The relation (9) returns real values for the DFF only in a
 s t  K
  C

D0E s  t  u a   t   
specific range of E. In Fig. 3 the non-dimensional functions
ZminKE and ZmaxKE are depicted for varying E. As
where u(a)(t) is the absolute displacement of the support; s(a)(t) evident, real values for the DFF exists only if EEc. The
and s(t) = s(a)(t) - u(a)(t) are the absolute displacement of the
critical Ec is determined as the beta value returning Zmin = Zmax,
mass m and its relative displacement with respect to the
that is by the following equation:
support, respectively; and K = CE /m. Equation (6) does not
allow to identify neither a frequency nor a viscous term, since
2  E  cos SE 2   8E
2 2
the two phases are both represented by a single fractional  0 
term.
Fig. 3. Non-dimensional functions ZminKE and ZmaxKE Fig. 4. Fractional oscillator transfer function for various E

An approximate numerical solution
Ec . It is worth to be stressed that this critical value is
independent on any other parameter of the fractional
oscillator. If EEc, then the fractional oscillator has a
predominant elastic behaviour and the DFF corresponds to its
resonant frequency, analogously to the case of classic
oscillators with damping ]. On the other hand, when E!Ec
for (10) is where Z0 and ]0 are the natural frequency and damping ratio
of the main system, CE is the FTMD viscoelastic damping
coefficient, and P = m/M is the mass ratio between the damper
and the structure. Applying the Fourier Transform to (12), the
response of the structure is determined, in the frequency
domain, as the solution of the following system:
the oscillator has a prevalent viscous behaviour, and the  A Z  V Z  lZg Z   
absolute value of its transfer function is monotonically
decreasing with no relative maximum, as for classic oscillators
where the following positions have been made:
with damping ]!. The transfer function trend is shown in
Fig. 4 , for several values of E and for a selected value of the K
coefficient, highlighting the difference between the two ª HU1 Z  CE  iZ  E º
mentioned cases. A Z  « »
¬« Z
2
H S1 Z  ¼»
  
IV. FRACTIONAL TUNED MASS DAMPER FOR A SINGLE ªU Z  º ª1º
DEGREE OF FREEDOM SYSTEM V Z  « »; l «1»
¬ S Z  ¼ ¬¼
A. Evaluation of the system response statistics by stochastic The diagonal terms of the matrix A( Z) are the transfer
analysis functions of the main system and of the FTMD, respectively,
A SDOF system equipped with an attached FTMD (Fig. 5) defined as:
is herein considered. Assuming that the base is subjected to an
assigned acceleration history zg , the system equation of
1
motions can be written in the following form: HU Z 
2] 0Z0  iZ   Z02  Z 2
  
P
­° Mu  t   Cu  t   Ku  t   T  t   Mzg  t  H S Z 
CE  iZ   PZ 2
E
 ®  
°̄mu  t   ms t   T  t  mzg  t 
Finally, if the one-sided Power Spectral Density function
where M, C and K are the mass, damping coefficient and (PSDF) of the base acceleration Gzg Z  is assigned, then the
stiffness of the main system; u(t) = u(a)(t) - zg(t) is its relative
displacement with respect to the base; s(t) is the relative PSDF of the response V( Z) is easily evaluated as:
displacement of the mass m of the FTMD with respect to M;
and T(t) is the force that the FTMD exerts on the mass M. By  G V Z  GZg Z  A 1 Z  l l T A  T* Z   
dividing the first equation for the mass of the principal system
and the second one for the FTMD mass, and replacing the
notation with capital letters to indicate stochastic processes, where the matrix GV is defined as follows:
(11) can be rewritten as:
ªGUU Z  GUS Z  º
 G V Z  « * » 
 
­U  t   2] 0Z0U  t   Z02U  t   CE D E S  t   Zg  t  ¬ GUS Z  GSS Z  ¼
° 0
 ® C 
°U  t   S  t  
P
E

D0E S  t   Zg  t 
¯


Fig. 5. SDOF structural system equipped with FTMD
B. FTMD tuning criteria
The design of the FTMD requires to determine both the
fractional oscillator mass m and its viscous damping
coefficient CE. In general, the FTMD mass can be designed a
priori by choosing an appropriate value for the mass ratio P.
Then, the viscous damping coefficient can be opportunely
designed by tuning the DFF with the natural frequency of the
main system. For the case of Multi Degree Of Freedom
(MDOF) systems, the tuning target is the natural frequency of
the mode that requires maximum damping effect. Therefore,
the first step is to select an appropriate tuning ratio. For the
cases of classic TMD devices, several tuning criteria have
system mass has been considered. Moreover, two different
values of the fractional derivative order E involved in the
FTMD constitutive law have been used, i.e. E = 0.10 and
E = 0.30. The base excitation is modeled as a zero-mean
Gaussian white noise having unitary one-sided PSDF. The
PSDF of the displacement of the system response has been
evaluated by means of (16). In particular, the PSDF of the
displacements of the main structure are shown in Fig. 6 and
Fig. 7 for the two cases of E = 0.10 and E = 0.30, respectively.
By comparing the two cases, it can be observed that the
damping effect on the main system is prevalent for the smaller
E value. In fact, when E = 0.10 the FTMD has a prevalent
elastic behaviour and, analogously to classic TMD devices,
two distinct peaks can be observer in the response PSDF. On
the other hand, in the second case, when the E value is
increased, the PSDF of the response shows a single peak,
since the viscous behaviour has been enhanced with respect to
the first case. The effectiveness of the FTMD in the two cases
has been compared by using a performance index, opportunely
defined in terms of reduction of the standard deviation of the
response:
VU  VU
 H 0
 
been proposed in literature to maximize the effectiveness of VU
the dampers ([1], [3], [16]). Herein, the optimal tuning ratio 0

proposed by Gosh and Basu [16] has been adopted:

where V U 0 and V U are the standard deviations of the
displacements of the uncontrolled and controlled systems,
1  4] 02  P  2] 02  1 respectively, evaluated as:
 Q opt  
1  P 
3

f
HU Z  GZg Z  d Z
2

The DFF of the fractional oscillator is obtained by 

V U2 0 ³ 0
 
f
multiplying the optimal tuning ratio (18) by the natural V U2 ³ GUU Z  d Z
frequency of the main system, that is: 0

since the system has been considered stationary, as customary

 Zs Q opt Z0   in stochastic vibrations field.

Finally, the viscous damping coefficient is determined, by

inverting (9), as follows:

 CE

m a  a 2  8E  ˜Z 2 E
 
2E
s

Since a real value for the DFF is required, the proposed

procedure can be applied only for the case of EEc. In fact,
the concept of frequency tuning does not make sense if E!Ec,
since no resonant frequency can be identified for the fractional
oscillator in this case. However, it has to be stressed that, for
the case of elastomeric rubber bearings taken in exam in this
paper, the value of E is normally smaller than Ec.

C. Numerical application Fig. 6. Primary mass displacement PSDF. Uncontroller system and
In this section, numerical simulations for a SDOF system controlled system with E = 0.10
equipped with a FTMD are presented. The main system has
natural frequency Z0 = 10 rad/s and damping coefficient
]0 = 5x10-3; a 2% mass ratio between the FTMD and the main

Fig. 7. Primary mass displacement PSDF. Uncontrolled system and
controlled system with E = 0.30
Numerical values for the performance indices obtained in
the two cases are reported in Table 1, together with the values
of the DFF and viscous damping coefficient obtained utilizing
the proposed tuning procedure.
TABLE I. FTMD PARAMETER FOR THE TWO STUDIED CASES
FTMD parameters E=0.10 E=0.30
Damper Fractional Frequency Zs [rad/s] 9.803 9.708
Viscous damping coefficient CE [N sE m-1] 1.551 1.687
Performance index H 0.640 0.582
V. CONCLUSIONS
The use of elastomeric rubber bearings with inherent
fractional constitutive laws has been investigated by proposing
a new formulation for Fractional Tuned Mass Dampers. The
design criteria for the device have been introduced by relating
the damping coefficient of the device with the geometrical
properties of the bearing. The definition of the Damped
Fractional Frequency of the fractional oscillator has been
proposed, based on the analysis of its transfer function.
Moreover, a critical value for the fractional derivative order
involved in the device constitutive law has been identified. A
prevalent dynamic elastic behaviour has been observed for the
fractional oscillator whenever the fractional derivative order is
smaller than the critical value. In the opposite case, the
fractional oscillator shows a prevalent viscous behaviour. The
design of the damping coefficient of the device can be done by
inverse formula, tuning opportunely the Damped Fractional
Frequency with the natural frequency of the primary system,
adopting existent tuning procedures developed for regular
Tuned Mass Dampers. The effectiveness of the method has
been tested by numerical simulation on a system excited by
stochastic loads, and the efficiency of the Fractional Tuned
Mass Damper has been confirmed estimating the reduction of
the standard deviation of the response of the primary system,
defining an appropriate performance index.
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