An Experimental Study of Seismic Structural Response With Added Viscoelastic Dampers

Keywords: Viscoelastic Dampers, Structural Response, and Seismic Excitation.

Abstract: The feasibility of using viscoelastic dampers to mitigate earthquake-induced structural response is studied experimentally. Two series of experiments were conducted using a model structure simulating a single-degree-of-freedom structure and a three-degree-of-freedom structure. Reductions in relative displacements and absolute accelerations are used as the measure of effectiveness of added viscoelastic dampers. Temperature dependency of the dampers is carefully examined together with the problem of damper placement. Experimental as well as simulation results show that significant improvement of structural performance under seismic conditions can be realized with the addition of viscoelastic dampers. It is shown that damper effectiveness is strongly dependent upon the environmental temperature. The importance of their placements within the structure is also stressed.