Seismic Behavior and Design Guidelines for Steel Frame Structures with Added Viscoelastic Dampers

Abstract

In order to determine the effectiveness of adding viscoelastic dampers to structures on the reduction of their seismic response, a comprehensive analytical and experimental program was carried out. The experimental program was first conducted on a 2/5-scale five-story steel frame under precisely controlled ambient temperatures and subject to simulated ground motions with peak accelerations ranging from 0.12 g to 0.60 g. Results show that viscoelastic dampers are very effective in attenuating seismic structural response at all levels of earthquake ground motions, and that their energy dissipation capacity decreases as ambient temperature increases. However, they are effective at all temperatures tested in the research program. A rational seismic design procedure for viscoelastically damped structures is developed based on these results. Further tests using a full-scale prototype structure confirm that damping in the full-scale structure can be significantly increased by adding relatively small viscoelastic dampers. The damper design procedure developed based on the scaled model can also be applied to the full-scale structure. This full-scale analytical and experimental study provides an important base for applying the extensive data generated from the scaled model testing to the full-scale structures.<BR>