Characterization and Implementation of Viscoelastic Damping Devices in Steel Structures

Abstract

Many methods have been proposed to achieve optimal performance of structures subjected to seismic excitation. Traditional approaches focus on ensuring structures do not collapse and can resist earthquakes by providing a combination of strength, deformability and energy dissipation.In such cases energy dissipation devices provide an appropriate response by absorbing and dissipating a significant amount of the seismic energy input. Enhancing energy dissipation devices in structures can be achieved in several ways. These devices typically work based on the principles of metallic yielding, frictional sliding or deformation of viscoelastic solids or fluids and can efficiently reduce motions caused by wind and earthquakes. Passive Energy Dissipation Devices absorb and dissipate seismic energy, reducing the demand on the structural elements. This study aims to characterize and implementation of a Viscoelastic Damper using viscoelastic materials to enhance the damping capacity of structures under dynamic loading. The research involved experimental setup, material selection criteria and identifying NBR Particle Balls utilization for improving damping performance. Important factors such as operating frequency, piston stroke length and packing fraction were discussed for their impact on damping force. The experiments involves the comparison of Air Damper with NBR Particle Dampers and Air pressure control condition provided by air compressor to observe its effect on damping. capacity. Dynamic loading was applied by using a shake table operating at various range of frequencies. In experiment work accelerometer and force sensor are used to measure the displacement and force. For capturing real time data with same time step and for data filtering LabVIEW software was used in experiment work. The MATLAB code are developed to plot the graph of this data includes separate and combined graph of comparison. For practical implementation a small sized damper was attached to a MDOF (Multi Degree of Freedom) system made of aluminum. This experiment work helped to analyze the structural response under dynamic loading. Significant improvements in structural response were observed with the damper especially when additional particles and air pressure were applied which resulting in reduced structural response. For comparison of different system bar chart are provided by using MATLAB code. To compare the all xii results structural response graph are provided for better understanding. Analytically approach for the implementation of the damper was conducted by using SAP2000 software. Moment Resisting Frame System was analyzed for Non linear analysis by using Time History Function. For Time History Function the El Centro earthquake file is provided as input. Different type of dampers Viscoelastic, ADAS and TADAS are implemented in the Moment Resisting Frame System to reduce the earthquake effects. The results shows the optimal performance of the dampers in reducing structural response and comparison of different damper system.