Title: Seismic design and assessment of steel frames with visco-plastic dampers

Authors: Jaehoon Bae; Theodore L. Karavasilis

Addresses: School of Engineering, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL Coventry, UK ' Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, GR-26500, Patras, Greece

Abstract: This paper evaluates the seismic performance of steel frames with visco-plastic dampers. The visco-plastic damper is realised by the in-series combination of a viscoelastic damper and a friction device. Its main goal is the reduction of storey drifts without significantly increasing the base shear force. A prototype steel building is designed as a high ductility steel moment-resisting frame (MRF). The MRF is then equipped with viscoelastic or visco-plastic dampers to achieve high seismic performance. Parametric designs of visco-plastic dampers with different activation forces for their friction devices are carried out. Nonlinear dynamic analyses for a set of 20 earthquake ground motions scaled to the design and maximum considered earthquake (MCE) intensities are carried out in OpenSees. Moreover, incremental dynamic analyses (IDA) up to collapse are conducted. The response results highlight the effectiveness of the visco-plastic damper to control drifts, residual drifts, and the base shear force, while also providing an adequate seismic collapse resistance.

Keywords: visco-plastic damper; steel MRF; seismic design; resilience; Eurocode 8.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIE.2018.099350

International Journal of Earthquake and Impact Engineering, 2018 Vol.2 No.4, pp.282 - 297

Received: 09 Aug 2018
Accepted: 15 Sep 2018

Published online: 29 Apr 2019 *

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