Influence of Fluid Viscous Damper Stiffness on the Floor Acceleration Response of Steel Moment-Resisting Frames Under Far-Field Ground Motions

ABSTRACT

The implementation of fluid viscous dampers has been proven as a feasible method to improve the seismic performance of buildings. However, the different variables involved in the damper’s design affect the structural response, especially in terms of seismic demand on non-structural elements. This paper presents a parametric study on the floor acceleration response of three case study buildings equipped with fluid viscous dampers through nonlinear time-history analysis. The results show that the different design parameters of fluid viscous dampers significantly modify the floor acceleration response, with some damper configurations yielding floor accelerations larger than those of the buildings without dampers.

KEYWORDS:

• Fluid viscous dampers
• Maxwell material stiffness
• velocity exponent
• seismic acceleration demand
• floor acceleration spectrum
• non-structural elements
• non-structural components

Acknowledgments

The work presented in this paper has been developed within the framework of the project “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza”, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research at IUSS Pavia. The authors gratefully also acknowledge the Italian Department of Civil Protection (DPC) for their financial contributions to this study through the ReLUIS 2019-2021 Project (Work Package 17 – Contributi Normativi Per Elementi Non Strutturali). The third author acknowledges the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MUR) in the framework of the project PNRR CN ICSC Spoke 9.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri; Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca.