Seismic Response Control of Building using Passive Devices

Abstract

Earthquakes are one of the major natural hazards and Responsible for the lives of thousands of people and damage to the Structures. Buildings being one of the prime structures for mankind, it is necessary that they are designed to resist earthquake forces. Building subjected to earthquake excitation show excessive structural response (vibrations); though inherent damping of the building helps to reduce to some extent vibrations caused. However, building subjected to strong motions, the inherent damping of the building is insufficient to control the structural response and hence, additional stiffness and/or damping are demanded. Three basic technologies are used to impart additional stiffness and/or damping in the building. These are Base Isolation, Passive Energy Dissipation Devices and Active Control Devices. In Passive Energy Dissipation systems the motion of the building is controlled by adding passive device to the building which contributes to additional stiffness and damping. Passive energy dissipation devices operates on principles such as, yielding of metals, frictional sliding and deformation of Viscoelastic (VE) solids or fluids. Nowadays there are numbers of manufactured damper available in the market like Friction, Yielding Metallic, Viscoelastic (VE) and Viscous Dampers. The main objective of the paper is to control the seismic response of the building subjected to d otion and pulse) of earthquake excitations using Passive Energy Dissipation Devices like Viscous and Viscoelastic (VE) Dampers. A three sto.rey shear building is considered and solved using Newmark-Beta numerical method through MATLAB. Response quantities like displacement, velocity, acceleration, interstorey drift and damper force are extracted. Comparison of buildings with Viscous and VE dampers with that of uncontrolled building is carried out for response quantities. It has been found that extra amount of stiffness and damping provided by passive dampers directly influences the seismic response of the building. The response quantities show reduction up to half (~ 50%) as compared to uncontrolled response of the building.