Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 17551761

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Reduction of earthquake response of plane frame buildings by

viscoelastic dampers
Semih S. Tezcan , Ozan Uluca
Department of Civil Engineering, Boagzici University, Bebek, Istanbul 80815, Turkey
Received 4 August 2000; received in revised form 7 April 2003; accepted 21 July 2003

Abstract
This paper is focused on the viscoelastic dampers to be used as energy-absorbing devices in buildings. Their advantages and
disadvantages as well as their application on three model structures have been described. The analytical studies of the model
structures exhibiting the structural response reduction due to these viscoelastic devices are presented. In order to exhibit the benefits
of viscoelastic dampers, a nonlinear time history analysis is carried out for all case studies: (a) a 7-storey steel frame, (b) a 10storey reinforced concrete frame, and (c) a 20-storey reinforced concrete frame. The top storey relative displacements as well as
the top storey absolute accelerations and also the base shear values obtained indicate that these viscoelastic dampers when incorporated into the super-structure behave like a break pedal and reduce the earthquake response significantly in proportion to the amount
of damping supplied in these devices.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Dampers; Viscoelastic; Retrofilling; Earthquake response; Energy absorbing

1. Introduction

tion of the contents and the continued functioning of the

building after an earthquake can be just as important.

1.1. Conventional design philosophy

Conventional buildings are designed for earthquake
induced forces that are much smaller than the force levels predicted by an elastic analysis for the ground motion
of even moderate earthquakes. The structural designer
justifies these design levels by making the structure ductile. By utilizing the concept of ductility in the structural
design, the engineer achieves a balance between safety
and first cost of construction. The ductile structure is
capable of absorbing forces induced by earthquake
motions by deformations in carefully detailed critical
regions. Ductile action does, however, allow for damage
to the extent of plastic hinging in these critical regions.
The objective of building codes is to establish a minimum standard for protection of life safety by preventing
collapse of buildings, but for many buildings the protec-

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-212-287-0008; fax: +90-212287-0009.

E-mail address: tezokan@superonline.com (S.S. Tezcan).

0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2003.07.001

1.2. The passive control systems

There are many passive control systems of reducing
the earthquake demand on a structural system. One passive control technique that is most suitable for low-rise
structures is Base Isolation. Another passive control
technique suitable for medium or high-rise structures is
to take the advantage of the energy dissipation potential
of well-detailed critical regions. The rationale behind the
seismic design with energy-absorbing devices would be
to satisfy the earthquake code strength requirements
without devices, and by means of the enhanced damping,
provided by the devices the drift requirements may be
satisfied.
Many moment resisting steel frames must incorporate
more steel than strictly necessary for strength in order to
control drift. By the addition of dampers into the superstructure of a building may result in both reduced damage to contents and also the elimination of costs due to
loss of function after an earthquake. The cost of

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S.S. Tezcan, O. Uluca / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 17551761

additional devices is of the order of about 1% of the

overall cost of the structural frame.
The development and characterization of these
devices have lead to a new seismic design philosophy,
which relies on increasing the energy dissipation
capacity of the structural frame as opposed to relying
upon increased frame stiffness and ductility. In other
words, the earthquake input energy can now be consumed by the deformation of these non-structural mechanical dampers as opposed to being absorbed by the
yielding of and damage to main structural members.
1.3. Some basic types of dampers
Many types of energy-absorbing devices are available.
Added damping and stiffness elements which are based
on the plastic deformation of mild steel to dissipate
energy and thus reduce response were proposed by
Scholl [1]. Tapered plate energy absorbers were proposed and studied using earthquake simulator tests by
Tsai and Tsai [2]. The rationale behind the tapered plate
energy absorbers is again the yielding of steel plates.
Vibration control of structures under earthquake loading by three-stage friction-grip elements was proposed
by Roik et al. [3]. The superior performance of threestage friction-grip elements and their economic advantages over the ductile steel frame and the stiff concrete
core systems have been proven by experimental testing.
Another innovative technique, which is composed of
sliding friction devices in the bracing system of the
framed buildings, has been proposed by Pall and Marsh
[4]. The system consists of an inexpensive mechanism
containing friction brake lining pads introduced at the
intersection of frame cross-braces. Each brace is provided with a connection which, during a severe earthquake, is designed to slip before exceeding the yield
capacity of any member in the structure. The earthquake
simulator tests of the friction devices have been also
presented by Filiatrault and Cheery [6]. They have also
studied comparative performance of friction damped
systems and base isolation systems for earthquake retrofit and aseismic design [5].
A further development in energy-absorbing devices is
the viscoelastic damper, in which a highly dissipative
polymeric material is incorporated into the structure. The
helical springs and the accompanying viscoelastic dampers have been used by the Gerb (1978) [7], for the
energy dissipation purposes under machine foundations.
Similar viscoelastic dampers had been also in use for the
last 20 years as wind vibration absorbers in the terrorist
attacked World Trade Center towers in New York city
and have more recently been incorporated in a number
of other buildings. This new damping system has been
proposed as seismic response reducers by Kelly and
Chalhoub [8]. Experimental comparison on the
efficiency of viscoelastic and added damping and stiff-

ness devices have been presented by Hanson and

Bergman [9].
All energy-absorbing devices have advantages and
disadvantages, and the selection of a damper will depend
on the structure and the seismic environment. Mild steel
devices have an initial elastic range of behaviour and
only dissipate significant amounts of energy when they
undergo large plastic deformations. In order to dissipate
energy, frictional devices must be loaded beyond the slip
threshold, and thus are likely to be ineffective under
small to moderate shaking. Both types of devices are
intrinsically nonlinear, and both are most effective for
severe earthquake attack.

1.4. Viscoelastic dampers

Viscoelastic dampers have been adopted for several

tall buildings in the United States to reduce windinduced vibrations. Significant reduction of sway by
these dampers has been achieved in these buildings.
Recent researchers have proven that they may also be
suitable for the seismic hazard mitigation of buildings.
Many analytical models and numerical techniques have
been proposed to simulate the behaviour of jointed structures equipped with viscoelastic dampers.
These devices contain viscoelastic material with certain viscosity characteristics. The most commonly used
materials are acrylic copolymers. The materials are
known to be very stable with good aging properties, are
chemically inert and are also resistant to environmental
pollutants. When used as the energy-absorbing components in dampers, they are normally used in the form of
shear layers and the exposed surface area is very small
relative to the volume of material. Thus, any chemical
process that depends on diffusion, for example, moisture
absorption or penetration, will be very slow.
Viscoelastic dampers are quite linear in their response
and are able to dissipate energy under low levels of shaking. They are able to reduce vibrations due to wind,
traffic and moderate earthquakes as well as extreme
earthquake loading. Probably, one drawback of the viscoelastic dampers is that their performance is related to
the ambient temperature. As the temperature is
increased, proportional decrease in energy dissipation
capacity is observed.
A recent application of the viscoelastic dampers has
taken place in the City Hall of San Francisco, USA as
described by Elsesser et al. [10]. They assessed the seismic response of the building with and without passive
dampers. The storey drift was reduced to about 30% by
using dampers.
In this presentation, the influence of viscoelastic dampers on the reduction of seismic response of various
structures is investigated by analytical studies.

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2. Analytical investigations
2.1. Computer program and earthquake data
Analytical modelling of the viscoelastic dampers is
achieved by using the SAP2000n package program [11].
The objective of the analysis is to present the amount of
reduction in the seismic response of structures by the
use of viscoelastic dampers installed at each storey level.
Three example structures are investigated under the
effects of the NS components of both the 1940 ElCentro and the 1952 Pasadena earthquakes. However, in
order to account for different soil conditions, such as
rock, hard soil and soft soil, the time intervals of the
input earthquake records have been modified to be dt
= 0.005, dt = 0.01 and dt = 0.02 s. Thus, a sensitivity
analysis is performed to investigate the influence of different soil conditions in response to reduction capabilities of viscodampers. Altogether, six different time history records have been utilized.
2.2. Modelling of the viscoelastic dampers
The viscoelastic dampers have been modelled by the
NLPROP and NLLINK data blocks of the SAP2000n
program. For each deformational degree of freedom,
independent damping properties may be specified. The
damping properties are based on the Maxwell model of
viscoelasticity having a linear or nonlinear damper in
series with a spring.
If nonlinear properties are not specified for a degree
of freedom, that degree of freedom is linear using the
effective stiffness, which may be zero. The nonlinear
force f is given by
f kdk cvc exp

(1)

where k is the spring constant, c is the damping coefficient, c exp is the damping exponent, dk is the deformation across the spring and v is the velocity across the
damper. The damping exponent must be positive. The
practical range is between c exp = 0.2 and 2.0. In the
numerical data of this study c exp is taken as unity.
The total internal deformation d, of the diagonal link
element is the sum of the spring deformation dk and the
damper deformation dc.
If pure damping behaviour is desired, the effect of
spring deformation can be made negligible by defining
k sufficiently stiff. The spring stiffness k should be large
enough so that the characteristic time of the spring-dashpot system, given by t = c / k, is an order of magnitude
smaller than the size of the time steps. In the numerical
investigations, an appropriate k is selected which makes
t smaller than 0.02, then for these predetermined values
of t and k, the damping coefficient c is varied to observe
purely the influence of damping.
The damping ratio supplied by the viscoelastic devices

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is obtained by an analogy to the logarithmic decrement

curve for one degree freedom system. The displacement
amplitude versus time curve of one degree freedom system is a decreasing sine curve from which the damping
ratio is calculated by
Ln(u1 / u2) 2b / 1b2

(2)

where u1 and u2 are the peak displacements at two consecutive time periods, and b is the effective damping
ratio. In the same manner, if u1 and u2 are the maximum
horizontal displacements of the top storey at any time t
for the undamped and the damped system, respectively,
the average effective damping ratio b supplied by the
devices is obtained from the above formula.
By changing the viscosity coefficient c, in the program, the effective damping ratio b is changed likewise.
The relationships between b (in percent) and c (kN s/m)
values for each example building are given in Table 1.
2.3. Example buildings
The first building is a 7-storey steel frame adopted
from the verification manual of the SAP2000n program
with a typical storey mass of 85.8 kN s2/m. The system
is equipped with the viscoelastic damping devices at
each storey level as shown in Fig. 1. Equal structural
bracings having the same stiffness coefficient k = 25
000 kN / m have been used for both the undamped and
damped frames in order to detect the sole influence of
viscoelastic dampers.
The second building is a 10-storey, 3-bay reinforced
concrete frame as shown in Fig. 2. The floors develop
a uniformly distributed load of 58 kN/m along the beams
throughout. A storey mass of 83.14 kN s2/m is used for
all levels.
The third example building is a 20-storey 3-bay
reinforced concrete frame as shown in Fig. 3. The floor
loads and masses are the same as in the second
example building.
2.4. Reduction of response by viscoelastic dampers
All three example buildings have been subjected to the
NS component of the 1940 ElCentro earthquake ground
motion for both the undamped and damped cases. The
Table 1
Viscosity c and corresponding b values
Seven-storey

Ten-storey

Twenty-storey

500
1000
5000

7.6
11.6
27.4

500
5000
10000

3.9
15
28.6

5000
10000
20000

4.6
9.1
15.4

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S.S. Tezcan, O. Uluca / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 17551761

Fig. 1. Seven-storey steel frame.

time history responses including horizontal displacements, velocities, accelerations and internal forces at all
joints and members in all degrees of freedom have been
computed. For the purpose of illustration, however, the
time history of relative horizontal displacements at the
top level of the 7-, 10- and 20-storey buildings is shown
in Figs. 46 for undamped and also three different effective damping values. Similarly, the time history of the
base shear of the 20-storey building is shown in Fig. 7
again for various effective damping values. In addition
to the effective damping supplied by the viscous dampers, in all examples, an inherent critical structural
damping ratio of 5% is assumed.
It is seen that, as the total damping ratio increases,

Fig. 2.

Ten-storey reinforced concrete building.

the response values decrease significantly, thereby proving the favourable roles of the viscoelastic dampers.
2.5. Effects of ground motion frequencies
It is shown in the previous numerical analyses that the
viscoelastic dampers perform very well under the ElCentro earthquake ground motion which represents basically
the stiff or rocky ground conditions. In order to investigate the relative behaviour of the viscoelastic dampers
under soft soil conditions, another earthquake record that
of the 1952 Pasadena earthquake with constant time
intervals has been selected.

S.S. Tezcan, O. Uluca / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 17551761

1759

The predominant frequency of the input motion is

varied by changing the time interval t of the earthquake
in the input data without changing the total number of
time steps N. Actually, the Pasadena earthquake record
has its original duration of 8 s taken at a total of 800
time records at an interval of t = 0.01 s. By increasing
t, the predominant period of the input ground motion
is increased, representing soft soil conditions. By
decreasing t, a reduction in the predominant period of
the earthquake motion occurs thus representing stiff
soil conditions.
In order to bring the level of the peak ground acceleration of the Pasadena earthquake to that of the Elcentro
earthquake, a vertical scale factor of (0.3 g/0.05 g) six
is used.
The relative horizontal displacements of the top storey
of the 10-storey example building in which the viscodampers supplied 15% of effective damping, have been
computed by varying the input record t values of the
Pasadena earthquake between t = 0.005 and t =
0.03 s and the results for three different soil conditions
are illustrated in Fig. 8.
It is seen that, the top horizontal displacements for the
soft soil condition, for which the predominant spectral
period is T = 0.70 s, are relatively much higher than
those of the rock site condition, for which the predominant spectral period is T = 0.18 s.

3. Conclusions

Fig. 3.

Twenty-storey reinforced concrete frame.

Fig. 4.

(a) The computer package SAP2000n is ideally suitable

for conducting a time history analysis of structures
with linearly or nonlinearly varying viscoelastic
dampers.
(b) The numerical results on three example frames

Top storey relative horizontal displacements (7-storey building).

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Fig. 5.

Top storey relative horizontal displacements (10-storey building).

Fig. 8. Relative horizontal displacements of top storey for varying

time history record (10-storey) (T = predominant spectral period of
the input data).

Fig. 6. Top storey relative horizontal displacements (20-storey

building).

tent earthquakes, however, since the predominant

periods of the soil and structure coincide, the viscoelastic devices are less effective.

References

Fig. 7. Base shear (20-storey building).

clearly indicate that the viscoelastic dampers reduce

the seismic response of structures in an extremely
efficient way. For instance the top storey horizontal
displacements are reduced by about seven times in
the 20-storey example.
(c) By changing the time intervals of the earthquake
input data, it is seen that the viscoelastic dampers in
tall buildings are most effective for high frequency
earthquakes like ElCentro. For low frequency con-

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