The destructive nature of earthquakes continues to pose significant challenges for engineers and researchers to develop effective mitigation strategies. Among these, structural vibration control has become a key area of focus for enhancing seismic resilience. Within this domain, inerter-based dampers have emerged as particularly promising solutions, complementing established approaches such as seismic isolation systems and tuned mass dampers. Inerter is a two-terminal mechanical element that generate force proportional to the relative acceleration between its two terminals. It has attracted significant attention from the structural engineering community in the last two decades due to its unique ability to function as a mass amplifier. Depending on its mechanism, an inerter can amplify effective mass several hundred times greater than its actual physical mass, making it highly attractive for vibration control applications. Among the many inerter-based dampers proposed in the literature, the inerter-based vibrating barrier (I-ViBa) stands out for its unique capability as an external and non-invasive vibration mitigation system. Installed adjacent to the primary structure, the I-ViBa interacts through the soil-structure interaction, enabling effective energy dissipation without interfering with the structural integrity or architectural constraints of the main building. This distinctive feature makes it particularly attractive for retrofitting existing structures and for use in densely built urban environments. The currently available I-ViBA incorporates an inerter as an added element to the secondary mass of the vibrating barrier. As a result, a substantial physical mass is still required to achieve effective vibration mitigation. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel configuration in which the inerter replaces the conventional secondary mass. In this paper, we show how this approach can significantly reduce the overall mass requirement while preserving or even improving the dynamic performance of the system. The resulting design is more compact and lightweight, which increases its feasibility for practical implementation in structural applications. The effectiveness of the proposed system is demonstrated through numerical simulations, highlighting its potential to deliver high-performance seismic protection with reduced structural demands. These findings suggest a promising direction for developing next-generation, lightweight, and non-invasive vibration mitigation solutions for both new and existing buildings.

Keywords: vibration control, seismic resilience, inerter-based dampers, inerter-based vibrating barrier, soil-structure interaction.