Evaluation of Damping Ratios for the Seismic

Analysis of Tall Buildings

Cristian Cruz 1 and Eduardo Miranda, Ph.D. 2

Abstract: This paper examines damping ratios in tall buildings in California inferred from motions recorded in instrumented buildings
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during earthquake motions. A total of 41 measured seismic responses from 14 buildings with 20 or more stories are analyzed using a para-
metric least-squares system identification technique in the time domain. The reliability of the inferred damping ratios is first examined based
on the sensitivity of the structural response to variations in modal damping ratios. Using only inferred damping ratios deemed reliable, it is
found that the damping ratios of the fundamental mode decrease with increasing building height, reaching values lower than 2.5%—the
damping value that is commonly recommended for seismic design in the United States for buildings taller than 150 m. The variation of
damping of higher modes with frequency is then examined by studying the results of those buildings where damping ratios of at least the first
three modes are reliably inferred. It is shown that the variation of damping with frequency follows an approximately linear trend. No evidence
was found to suggest that a mass-proportional model could be appropriate. The amplitude dependency of damping is then analyzed for
buildings having four or more recorded earthquakes, finding no statistical correlation between the peak roof drift ratio and the identified
fundamental damping ratio. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0001628. © 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Introduction
Estimation of the response of tall buildings to seismic loading
requires knowledge of the damping in the building. Unlike mass
and stiffness matrices, which can be determined from the geometry
of the structure, the only reliable way to assess the damping in a
building is through measurements of the structural response when
subjected to dynamic loads. Several studies have gathered data on
damping ratios from the recorded response of buildings. Using
simplified methods, Blume (1970) estimated 38 values of damping
ratio for the fundamental mode of 5 buildings, all in the range of
20–30 stories, subjected to small tremors caused by underground
nuclear detonations. In a later publication, Blume studied 230 damp-
ing ratios from 74 buildings subjected to low-amplitude motions
(Scholl 1975). The resulting histograms for damping from these two
publications represent the first attempt to describe uncertainty in
damping. Haviland (1976) analyzed a set of 244 damping values
gathered from 139 buildings and constructed probability distribu-
tions for the damping ratio of the fundamental mode. The damping
estimates were collected through a literature survey of 39 references,
where the vast majority of the data came from low-amplitude sour-
ces such as nuclear, forced, micro-tremors, wind, and ambient vi-
brations. Davenport and Hill-Carroll (1986) developed a database
of 165 buildings subjected to full-scale damping tests, including all
the data from Haviland (1976). Unfortunately, the database did not
add any new data on damping inferred from high-amplitude motion.
Lagomarsino (1993) extended this database to a total of 185 build-
ings, adding data points collected from other investigations. Again,
1
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA 94305 (corresponding author). E-mail:
ccruzd@stanford.edu
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail: emiranda@stanford.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on November 12, 2015; approved
on June 18, 2016; published online on July 25, 2016. Discussion period
open until December 25, 2016; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Structural En-
gineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9445.
no new strong-motion data was added. The work of Satake et al.
(2003) collected data from various sources in Japan to assemble
a new database of damping values coming from 205 buildings.
The majority of the data, however, corresponds to low-amplitude
motions: only 18 of the 205 buildings were subjected to earthquakes,
of which only 4 were higher than 150 m. Fritz et al. (2009) collected
1,572 damping ratio measurements from full-scale tests on 972 dif-
ferent buildings. The database was compiled from smaller datasets
and other public sources, and had a fair share of strong motion data:
260 data points came from 93 buildings subjected to earthquakes,
but only 10 of those buildings were analyzed using parametric
system identification schemes. Furthermore, the vast majority of
high-quality damping data corresponds to low-amplitude sources.
There is a general agreement that damping is expected to increase
with amplitude at small deformation levels (Tamura and Yoshida
2008; Spence and Kareem 2013), and therefore, it is not clear to what
extent damping data from low-amplitude motions is applicable to
seismic analysis. Jeary (1986) showed that damping ratio increased
with increasing amplitude in 17 buildings subjected to forced vibra-
tions at very low amplitudes (the peak roof displacement in these
tests was less than 3 mm), proposing a piecewise linear model for
amplitude dependency. Li et al. (2000) confirmed this trend in a
series of observations of a 120-m-tall building subjected to ampli-
tudes up to a peak roof drift ratio of about 0.01%. Tamura et al.
(2000) corrected the piecewise linear model to take into account char-
acteristics observed in the Japanese damping database. An increase in
damping with amplitude has also been observed when comparing
values inferred from ambient vibrations with those obtained from
seismic motions. Celebi et al. (1993) and Celebi (1996) studied
the damping ratios of five buildings, first under ambient vibrations
and then subjected to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, observing in
all cases that the damping ratios inferred from strong-motion data for
the first mode were significantly larger than those obtained from am-
bient-vibration data. All these investigations lead to the conclusion
that damping recommendations for earthquake-resistant design
should come from the analysis of strong-motion data.
There are few studies on damping values inferred from the
seismic response of buildings. Using simplified spectral methods,

© ASCE 04016144-1 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 Tanaka et al. (1969) analyzed the records of 17 buildings subjected
to the 1968 Saitama (Japan) earthquake, whereas Hart and
Vasudevan (1975) studied 12 buildings subjected to the 1971
San Fernando earthquake. These two studies provide the only
strong-motion data points in the database by Haviland (1976) and
its later extensions. It is important to note that these early studies, as
well as some low-amplitude investigations, used spectral methods
such as the half-power bandwidth method to infer damping ratios.
It has been well documented that this method is not reliable and
produces biased results, overestimating damping due to several is-
sues including sampling resolution, zero padding, smoothing, mo-
dal interference, length of the signal, and stationarity problems
(Stagner and Hart 1971; Hill-Carroll 1985; Jeary 1986). Therefore,
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attention should be paid to damping ratios of buildings subjected to
earthquake motions and inferred employing modern system iden-
tification techniques. Beck and Jennings (1980) and McVerry
(1979) developed a system identification technique based on the
least-squares minimization between the measured seismic response
of a building and that predicted by a parametric model. The former
formulated the problem in the time domain and applied it to a
42-story building in Los Angeles, and the latter did it in the fre-
quency domain, analyzing 10 buildings subjected to the San
Fernando earthquake of 1971, of which three buildings had 20 sto-
ries or more. Li and Mau (1991) and Mau and Aruna (1994) used a
similar formulation in the time domain to analyze three buildings
of 6, 13, and 15 stories. Li and Mau (1997) analyzed 21 buildings
subjected to the 1987 Whittier and 1989 Loma Prieta earthquakes,
with only three buildings having 20 stories or more. Safak (1991)
presented a discrete-time filter approach to the identification of
structural parameters under earthquake conditions that was applied
to five buildings after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (Safak and
Celebi 1991, 1992; Celebi and Safak 1991, 1992; Celebi et al.
1993; Celebi 1996), only two of which exceeded 20 stories in
height. Goel and Chopra (1997) identified the damping ratio of
22 buildings under the Northridge earthquake of 1994; only three
of the buildings had 20 stories or more. Some of these studies were
summarized and form the basis for damping recommendations in
the ATC-72-1 document (PEER/ATC 2010) for analysis and design
of tall buildings. Reinoso and Miranda (2005) analyzed six tall
buildings located in California and found damping ratios ranging
from 4 to 6% for concrete buildings and 0.5–8% for steel buildings.
More recently, Bernal et al. (2015) analyzed the first mode damping
ratio of 68 buildings subjected to several earthquakes and provided
some equations to estimate damping. Only five buildings exceeded
20 stories in height. In spite of the advances in modern system iden-
tification techniques, there is still a large variability and hence un-
certainty in estimating damping ratios in tall buildings. The same
building can have different results when analyzed under different
earthquakes, and different identification methods may yield differ-
ent results for the same earthquake (Nakajima et al. 2012). Little
attention has been devoted to the reliability of the inferred damping
ratios, which has led to damping databases that sometimes include
different values for the same building analyzed by different inves-
tigators. The lack of reliability testing has also led some of the pre-
viously mentioned studies to report excessively large damping
ratios for higher modes, or modal period ratios that make no physi-
cal sense. These issues, together with the scarcity of data for tall
buildings, highlight the need for new, reliable damping estimates
for high-rise buildings.
The Center for Engineering Strong Motion Data (CESMD) is a
cooperative center that integrates the earthquake strong-motion
data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the
California Geological Survey (CGS). Their database of monitored
structures includes several tall buildings, some of which have been
© ASCE 04016144-2
J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144
subjected to multiple ground motions, providing an opportunity to
make numerous observations of the damping ratios in these build-
ings when subjected to earthquake ground motions. This work pro-
vides new data, analyzing the damping ratios inferred from motions
recorded in 14 buildings with 20 or more stories when subjected
to earthquake ground motions. The main objective is to determine
damping ratios that should be employed in the seismic analysis of
tall buildings when using linear elastic modal analysis and a fixed-
base model, in order to best reproduce the measured responses.
These assumptions are typically made in seismic design, where
soil–structure interaction is rarely taken into account. Damping
ratios were inferred from recorded motions using a parametric sys-
tem identification technique based on the minimization of the error
between the recorded and predicted responses in the time domain.
This technique is further investigated to establish confidence inter-
vals for the damping estimates, as well as to assess the reliability
of inferred damping ratios. Using only damping ratios deemed
reliable, the relationship between the damping ratio of the funda-
mental mode and the building height is evaluated and compared to
published recommendations. In the same spirit, the relationship be-
tween the damping ratio of higher modes and their corresponding
modal frequencies is studied and compared to the commonly used
Rayleigh damping. Finally, the relationship between damping and
amplitude of structural response is examined.
Buildings Analyzed
A total of 41 seismic responses, coming from 14 buildings with
20 stories or more, were analyzed. Table 1 shows a summary of
the 14 buildings, including their location, number of stories, height,
lateral-force resisting system, material, and number of earthquakes
analyzed. Table 2 shows information about the earthquakes consid-
ered. All recorded data was obtained from the Center for Engineer-
ing Strong Motion Data (USGS, CGS, and ANSS 2014).
System Identification
System identification is a tool to obtain information about a system
from its measured dynamic response. System identification tech-
niques can be categorized in two types: nonparametric and para-
metric. In a nonparametric technique, the system is treated like
a “black box” and the objective is to identify a functional relation-
ship between the inputs and outputs of the system, typically
through its transfer function. These models have several disadvan-
tages such as the lack of prior information about the structure, the
fact that the inferred function inevitably requires a parametric
model for physical interpretation, and that they are not capable
of predicting the response and therefore are not suitable for the seis-
mic design of a structure (Beck 1978). Briefly, a parametric system
identification procedure consists of finding the set of parameters
that minimizes the difference between the response recorded by
sensors installed in a building and the one predicted by a numerical
model of the building. Different identification techniques mainly
differ in the numerical model employed, in the objective function
used to measure the difference between the computed and mea-
sured response, and in the optimization algorithm employed to find
the parameters that minimize the objective function. If a modal re-
sponse history analysis is used to compute the seismic response of
the model of the structure, the problem involves the estimation of
the modal periods, critical damping ratios, mode shapes, and modal
participation factors of the model that will best reproduce the re-
corded structural response. This process can be conducted in either
the time domain (e.g., Beck and Jennings 1980) or in the frequency
J. Struct. Eng.
 Table 1. List of Buildings Analyzed
Number Identifier Identifier number Location Stories Height (m) Structural system Material Number of earthquakes
1 LA-20 24464 North Hollywood 20 51.5 MF RC 4
2 SD-21 3300 San Diego 21 92.2 MF S 4
3 EM-30 1662 Emeryville 30 95.1 MF RC 1
4 OA-22 58312 Oakland 22 100.0 MF S 2
5 LA-32 24288 Los Angeles 32 102.7 MF S 8
6 SA-25 67900 Sacramento 25 103.6 BF + MF S 1
7 SF-42b 58437 San Francisco 42 129.2 SW S 1
8 SF-47 58532 San Francisco 47 171.9 MF S 1
9 SF-42a 1443 San Francisco 42 183.3 MF S 1
10 SF-62a 58389 San Francisco 62 188.3 SW + OR RC 1
11 SF-58 58411 San Francisco 58 191.4 SW + MF + OR RC 2
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12 SF-48b 1239 San Francisco 48 206.1 MF S 1

13 LA-54 24629 Los Angeles 54 218.1 MF S 7
14 LA-52 24602 Los Angeles 52 218.2 BF S 7
Note: BF = braced frames; MF = moment frames; OR = outriggers; RC = reinforced concrete; S = steel; SW = shear walls.
a
This building has a tuned liquid-mass damper acting in its transverse direction (this direction was not analyzed).
b
The height of this pyramidal-shaped building was considered from the ground to the setbacks above the 48th floor in the N–S direction.

Table 2. Earthquakes Considered in This Investigation Modal Minimization in the Time Domain
Number Earthquake Year MW Depth (km) In a linear, modal superposition model, the response of each mode
1 Landers 1992 7.3 1.1 is governed by the following equation of motion:
2 Calexico (1) 2010 7.2 32.3
3 Loma Prieta 1989 7.1 18.0 D̈n ðtÞ þ 2ωn ξ n Ḋn ðtÞ þ ω2n Dn ðtÞ ¼ −üg ðtÞ ð1Þ
4 Hector Mine 1999 7.1 6.0
5 Northridge 1994 6.7 19.0 where D̈n , Ḋn , and Dn correspond to the relative acceleration,
6 Big Bear 1992 6.5 1.0 velocity, and displacement of a single degree of freedom system
7 South Napa 2014 6.0 11.3 with unit mass, natural circular frequency ωn, and critical damping
8 Whittier 1987 5.9 9.5 ratio ξ n ; üg = ground acceleration, and the subindex n denotes the
9 Ocotillo 2010 5.7 6.9 mode number. The modal displacements unj at the jth degree of
10 Canyon dam 2013 5.7 11.0 freedom of the structure can then be computed as
11 Sierra Madre 1991 5.6 12.0
12 Alum Rock 2007 5.4 9.2 unj ðtÞ ¼ Γn ϕnj Dn ðtÞ ð2Þ
13 Chino Hills 2008 5.4 13.6
14 Borrego Springs 2010 5.4 14.0 where Γn = modal participation factor; and ϕnj = mode shape for
15 La Habra 2014 5.1 4.8
mode n evaluated at the jth degree of freedom. Multiplying Eq. (1)
16 Calexico (2) 2010 4.9 5.4
17 Inglewood 2009 4.7 15.0
by Γn ϕnj yields
18 Whittier Narrows 2010 4.4 18.0
ünj ðtÞ þ 2ωn ξ n u̇nj ðtÞ þ ω2n unj ðtÞ ¼ −Γn ϕnj üg ðtÞ ð3Þ
19 Encino 2014 4.4 9.9
20 Berkeley (2) 2011 4.0 9.8
21 Berkeley (1) 2011 3.8 9.6 where ünj , u̇nj , and unj correspond to the acceleration, velocity, and
22 LA Airport 2012 3.7 10.8 displacement of the jth degree of freedom for mode n relative to the
ground, respectively.
If only N modes are considered to have a significant influence in
domain (e.g., McVerry 1979). An important advantage of these the seismic response of the building, then the response of the struc-
methods is that the inferred parameters correspond to those that ture can be calculated as
need to be used by practicing structural engineers to reproduce X
N
the recorded response using conventional modal analyses. Another û¨ tj ðtÞ ≈ üg ðtÞ þ Γn ϕnj D̈n ðtÞ ð4Þ
family of methods for the identification of linear structures is the n¼1
use of discrete-time filters (Safak 1991). In this case, the identifi-
cation problem consists of obtaining the optimal parameters of the where û¨ tj = total (absolute) acceleration at the jth degree of
filter that will best reproduce the output signals. These parameters freedom.
of the filter can later be related to the dynamic properties of the The objective function considered in this study is defined as the
¨
difference squared between the predicted relative acceleration ûðtÞ
structure. These methods are widely used in other engineering
fields, so there are several software packages available to perform and the one measured by the sensors in the building üðtÞ normal-
the identification (e.g., Ljung 1999, 2003). Another commonly ized by the measured relative acceleration summed over all times
used family of methods uses a subspace approach (Van Overschee and sensors
and De Moor 1994; Di Ruscio 1996). The advantages of these
methods can be found in Viberg (1995) and Favoreel et al.
X
N sen X
τ
½üj ðiΔtÞ − û¨ j ðiΔtÞ2
JðθÞ ¼ Pτ 2
ð5Þ
(2000). There are numerous other system identification procedures, j¼1 i¼1 k¼1 ½üj ðkΔtÞ
whose details can be found in several literature review articles
(e.g., Ghanem and Shinozuka 1995; Beck 1996; Safak 2001; where N sen = number of sensors above ground level Δt and τ = the
Gevers 2006; Papagiannopoulos and Beskos 2012). time step and the number of points in the signal, respectively. This

© ASCE 04016144-3 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 objective function provides an overall measure of fit between the
computed and measured relative accelerations. The purpose of the
normalization of the squared error at each sensing location in
Eq. (5) is to provide an equal weight to each sensor location. Please
notice that if this normalization is not done, the system identifica-
tion would converge toward parameters that minimize the differ-
ence between computed and measured relative accelerations in
sensor locations experiencing larger accelerations which tend to in-
crease with increasing height and therefore, in general, would tend
to produce better fits for sensors located higher in the building.
The structural parameters are found as those that minimize the
objective function
min JðθÞ ð6Þ
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where
08 9 8 9 2 31
> ω1 > > ξ1 > Γ1 ϕ11 ··· ΓN ϕN1
>
< >
= >
< > = 6
B . . .. .. .. 7C
θ¼B 6
@> .. >; > .. >; 4 . . . 7C
5A ð7Þ
>
: > >
; : ; >
ωN ξN Γ1 ϕ1N sen ··· ΓN ϕNN sen
When designing buildings, the most commonly used type of
analysis is linear elastic response spectrum modal analysis. Further-
more, the base of the structure is typically assumed as fixed.
Eqs. (2)–(4) provide the time history response of fixed-base struc-
tures, so identified modal properties by minimization of the objec-
tive function [Eq. (5)] provide the estimation of modal periods and
damping ratios that best reproduce the measured response in com-
bination with the type of analysis in which these properties will be
used. In particular, the damping ratios identified in this study do not
correspond to those of the superstructure alone or what is some-
times referred to as the inherent structural damping, but rather they
represent the damping ratio of the combined soil-foundation-
structure system which include radiation damping due to rocking
of the soil–structure interaction. These dynamic properties are often
referred to as the “effective” dynamic properties of the equivalent,
fixed-base model of the building (Veletsos 1977). Therefore, the
identified damping ratios correspond to those that will best repro-
duce the measured response of the building of a fixed-base linear
elastic model when using as input a recorded motion at the base of
the structure.
Because the optimization problem is highly nonlinear, it is very
important to establish a good starting point for the minimization
algorithm in order to avoid convergence into local minima. To ob-
tain a set of initial parameters, a simplified model of the building
was used. The model considers the building as a continuous system
consisting of a cantilever flexural beam laterally attached to a shear
beam such that both undergo the same lateral deformation along the
height (Fig. 1), and it is governed by a small number of parameters:
the fundamental period T 1 , the modal damping ratios ξ n , and the
lateral stiffness ratio α, which measures the relative contribution of
the flexural rigidity and shear rigidity in the flexural and shear
beams, respectively. Based on these parameters, mode shapes,
period ratios, and modal participation factors are easily computed.
This model has previously been used to obtain approximate floor
acceleration and drift ratio demands, and to identify the dynamic
properties of buildings (Miranda and Taghavi 2005; Reinoso and
Miranda 2005; Miranda and Akkar 2006). The mathematical
description of the model, as well as recommended values for α
depending on the structural system of the building, can be found
in Miranda and Reyes (2002), whereas closed form equations of
modes shapes, period ratios, and modal participation factors can
be found in Miranda and Taghavi (2005) and Miranda and Akkar
(2006).
Fig. 1. Continuum model (reprinted from Miranda and Akkar 2006,
© ASCE)
Mode Inclusion Criteria
It is well known that only a small number of modes contribute sig-
nificantly to the seismic response of buildings. Therefore, there is a
need for cut-off criteria to eliminate parameters of modes that have
a negligible contribution to the response parameter being consid-
ered at instrumented locations in the structure. This is important
because, if a mode does not contribute significantly to the response
of the structure, the identified damping ratio may not be reliable.
This study uses cut-off criteria based on the Arias modal contribu-
tion factor defined in Eq. (8). This parameter measures the relative
contribution of the Nth mode with respect to the total calculated
response with N modes of vibration. In this investigation, only
those modes with an Arias modal contribution higher than 5% were
considered as relevant for the response of the structure.
Pτ PN sen 2
k¼1 j¼1 ½ünj ðkΔtÞ
MCn ¼ PN Pτ PN sen 2
ð8Þ
i¼1 k¼1 j¼1 ½üij ðkΔtÞ
There are some cases where the ground motion is not strong enough
in certain range of frequencies to significantly excite the first, and
sometimes also the second, mode of the structure. This may occur,
for example, in the case of low-magnitude earthquakes that may
produce significant response of higher modes but negligible re-
sponse of the first mode. In this case, the contribution of the first
mode may be very small and the damping ratio inferred for the first
mode may not be reliable. The inclusion criteria of inferred damp-
ing ratios for the first two modes are based on the amplification Rn
of the 1% damped floor acceleration spectral ordinates averaged in
the vicinity of the modal period in question for the motion recorded
at the roof with respect to that of the motion recorded at the base of
the building as follows:
S̄Roof
a ðT n Þ
Rn ¼ ð9Þ
S̄Ground
a ðT n Þ
where S̄a ðT n Þ corresponds to the average of the 1% damped floor
acceleration spectral ordinates within the period range defined by
½0.9T n ; 1.1T n , plus 0.01g. The purpose of the shift in the spectral
ordinates is to avoid numerical issues when values are close to zero.

© ASCE 04016144-4 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 Sa [g]
1994 Northridge
2.5
Roof
2.0 Ground
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0 2 4 6
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(a) Period [s]
Fig. 2. Roof and ground acceleration response spectrum (ξ ¼ 1%) for the E–W direction of building LA-52: (a) 1994 Northridge earthquake;
(b) 2008 Chino Hills earthquake
The cut-off criteria employed were R1 > 2.2 and R2 > 1.6. An
example of the application of these criteria is illustrated in Fig. 2
for building LA-52. Fig. 2(a) shows ground and roof lightly
damped (1% damped) response spectra for the 1994 M6.7
Northridge earthquake where it can be seen that there is significant
amplification of spectral ordinates of the motion recorded at the
roof relative to spectral ordinates of the motion recorded at the
ground for periods in the vicinity of the first mode period (approx-
imately 6 s); with a computed amplification factor of R1 ¼ 6.97,
indicating that the first mode is sufficiently excited during this
earthquake. The vertical lines in these figures indicate the period
range used to calculate the first mode amplification factor R1.
Meanwhile, Fig. 2(b) shows ground and roof 1% damped response
spectra for the 2008 M5.4 Chino Hills earthquake where almost no
amplification of spectral ordinates occur for periods in the vicinity
of the first mode in which an amplification factor of R1 ¼ 1.60 is
computed. Therefore, the damping ratio inferred for the fundamen-
tal mode under this particular earthquake is not considered in fur-
ther analyses.
Reliability of the Damping Estimates
The reliability of the damping estimates was quantified by the sen-
sitivity of the objective function J, defined in Eq. (5), to small
changes in the modal damping ratio. The identified parameters
minimize J, so any increase or reduction in the damping ratio with
respect to the identified damping ratio will cause an increment in
the value of the objective function. However, modes which are not
significantly contributing to the acceleration response changes in
the damping ratio may cause negligible changes in the objective
function, indicating that although the identified damping ratios
minimize the objective function, they are less reliable and they
may not necessarily correspond to those of the structure. In this
study the reliability of the identified damping ratio was quantified
by identifying the interval of damping ratios that produce changes
in the objective function J that are within 1% of its minimum value.
The width of this interval of damping ratios is a measure of the
reliability of the inferred damping values, allowing assessment
of the reliability of the modal damping ratios obtained for the same
building when subjected to different earthquakes. Fig. 3 shows the
variation of the objective function with changes in the damping ra-
tio of the first mode of the LA-52 building when subjected to three
different earthquakes. In this figure, the small circles indicate the
minimum of the objective function. The vertical lines show the in-
tervals containing the damping values that cause a variation of less
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144
Sa [g]
2008 Chino Hills
1.0
Roof
0.8 Ground
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
8 0 2 4 6 8
(b) Period [s]
than 1% in the objective function. It can be seen that the damping
interval for the 1992 Landers M W 7.3 earthquake is significantly
narrower than the one computed for 1994 Northridge MW 6.7 earth-
quake, indicating that there was a larger sensitivity of the acceler-
ation response to changes in the damping ratio in the Landers
earthquake than in the Northridge earthquake. Although a damping
ratio was adequately identified for both events the damping ratio
inferred from the Landers earthquake, an event with larger magni-
tude than the Northridge earthquake produces a stronger response
to the first mode and therefore yields a more reliable estimate of the
damping ratio of the fundamental period of the building. Similarly,
the damping ratio inferred from the 2014 La Habra M W 5.1 earth-
quake, although similar in value to that inferred from the Landers
earthquake, is less reliable because the objective function is not as
sensible to small changes in the damping ratio as it was during the
Landers earthquake.
Application to Tall Buildings
Identified Damping Ratios for the Fundamental Mode
The damping ratios for the fundamental mode were first studied and
analyzed. Fig. 4 shows the identified damping ratios for the first
mode, for both directions of each building, and its variation with
the building height. When more than one damping ratio was avail-
able for a building, the one with the narrowest reliability interval
was plotted in this figure. It can be seen that, as previously observed
by other investigators (Suda et al. 1996; Smith and Willford 2007;
Bernal et al. 2015) the damping ratio decreases with increasing
building height. Unlike the first two studies, which primarily in-
cluded damping ratios inferred from buildings subjected to wind
and other low-amplitude vibrations, the study by Bernal et al.
(2015) is based entirely on instrumented buildings subjected to
seismic loading. This study significantly expands the study by
Bernal for tall buildings by including nearly three times more build-
ings with more than 20 stories.
With the exception of one point (one building in one direction),
all the damping ratios in Fig 4 obtained for buildings taller than
150 m have values lower than 2.5%—the damping value that is
commonly recommended for seismic design of tall buildings in
the United States (LATBSDC 2006; TBI 2010). A power regression
was fitted to the data and also plotted in Fig. 4; the resulting co-
efficients can be seen in Table 3. Fig. 4 also compares the data to the
damping recommendations provided by four different investiga-
tions: Satake et al. (2003), Fritz et al. (2009), PEER/ATC-72-1
04016144-5 J. Struct. Eng.
 1992 Landers 1994 Northridge 2014 La Habra
20

18

16

14

12

10

4
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0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
1
[%] 1
[%] 1
[%]

Fig. 3. Variation of the objective function, J, with changes in the damping ratio of the first mode for building LA-52, during three different
earthquakes

Steel Buildings Concrete Buildings

8% 8%
Fritz et al. 2009 Bernal et al. 2015
7% Bernal et al. 2015 7% ATC-72-1 2010
ATC-72-1 2010 Fritz et al. 2009
6% 6%
Satake et al. 2003 Satake et al. 2003
5% This investigation 5% This investigation

4% 4%

3% 3%

2% 2%
1% 1%

0% 0%
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
(a) Building height (m) (b) Building height (m)

Fig. 4. Identified damping ratios for the fundamental mode versus building height, compared to some proposed recommendations: (a) steel buildings;
(b) reinforced concrete buildings

Table 3. Coefficients for Power Regression
Material A B R2 Function form
Steel 0.90 −0.76 0.45 ξ1 ¼ A · HB
Concrete 15.60 −1.31 0.81
(2010), and Bernal et al. (2015). For recommendations that use the
number of stories as regressors, an average height of 3.96 m (13 ft)
per story was considered to transform the number of stories into
building height. Caution should be taken when comparing these
regressions because they have been calculated from damping ratios
that have been collected from different loading conditions, using
different system identification methods and assumptions. Never-
theless, they all show a similar descending trend with building
height. For steel buildings [Fig. 4(a)], it can be seen that the curve
by Bernal agrees with the data over all the height range. The equa-
tion proposed by Satake et al. (2003) underestimates the damping
ratios inferred in this study. This is probably because most of the
data used by Satake and colleagues is based on very small vibration
amplitudes. For buildings over 150 m, the equation recommended
by Fritz et al. (2009) slightly overestimates the data, and may be
thought of as an upper bound. For concrete buildings [Fig. 4(b)]
the data is very scarce. However, it is worrisome that, with the ex-
ception of Satake et al. (2003), all recommendations overestimate
the data for buildings higher than 150 m. The 2% constant value
recommended in the performance-based PEER guidelines also ap-
pears to be high for buildings taller than 180 m. Values of damping
ratios lower than 2% from this investigation are consistent to
those reported by Smith and Willford (2007) or by Spence and
Kareem (2013).
Damping of Higher Modes
To study the damping ratio of higher modes, the three buildings
with the highest number of recorded events were selected: LA-32,
LA-52, and LA-54. SD-21 and LA-20 also have records available
from several earthquakes, but their response is governed primarily
by only the first two translational modes of vibration in each direc-
tion, so they were not considered in this part of the study. Fig. 5
shows the relation between the identified damping ratios ξ n in each
of the three buildings in each of the earthquakes when plotted

© ASCE 04016144-6 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 n LA-32 - Long. n LA-52 - Long. n LA-54 - Long.
8% 4% 4%

6% 3% 3%

4% 2% 2%

2% 1% 1%
R² = 0.56 R² = 0.76 R² = 0.48
0% 0% 0%
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)
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n LA-32 - Trans. n LA-52 - Trans. n LA-54 - Trans.

8% 4% 4%

6% 3% 3%

4% 2% 2%

2% 1% 1%
R² = 0.70 R² = 0.44 R² = 0.64
0% 0% 0%
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 5. Identified damping ratios versus modal frequencies, in the longitudinal and transverse directions, for three tall buildings in Los Angeles

as a function of their corresponding identified modal frequency f. Damping versus Amplitude

The plots include only the data that passed the reliability tests
previously described. It can be seen that, in all cases, damping in-
creases with increasing frequency. This is expected due to inertial
soil–structure interaction effects in which radiation damping in-
creases with increasing frequency for the rocking degree of free-
dom. Also shown in the figures is a linear model fitted to the
data, indicating that damping ratios of higher modes approximately
increase linearly with increasing frequency. However, the linear
trend does not entirely correspond to a stiffness-proportional damp-
ing because this type of damping model would force the linear
trend to start from the origin. It can be seen that the intercept of
the regressions are, in all cases, different from zero. This is coherent
with the findings of Satake et al. (2003) for the first three modes,
who concluded that higher mode damping ratios can be thought to
be an intermediate between constant damping for all modes and
stiffness-proportional damping. It should be noted that in none
of the three buildings there is a hyperbolic trend of decreasing
damping ratios with increasing frequency, indicating that using a
mass-proportional damping model is clearly inadequate. The most
common approach to model the damping in structures is to consider
Rayleigh damping in which damping ratios are specified as a linear
combination of the stiffness- and mass-proportional models.
Typically, a damping ratio is specified to be the same in the first
and third mode or in the first and fourth modes. It was found that
such a model did not provide a correct trend when selecting the
same damping ratio to the first and third modes of vibration, when
selecting the same damping ratio to the first and fourth modes of
vibration, nor when finding the best fit of the Rayleigh damping
model. Coefficients of determination were consistently much lower
than when using a simple linear trend, indicating that the use of
Rayleigh is not appropriate for tall buildings and, as shown in Fig. 5,
a linear variation provides a much better model of damping ratios in
tall buildings.
Several previous investigations have studied the effect of amplitude
on damping ratios. Most of these studies have considered relatively
small levels of lateral deformation under wind loading. A notable
exception is the study by Bernal et al. (2015) that evaluated the
correlation between damping ratios in the first mode and amplitude
in buildings subjected to earthquake loading. Different studies have
used different parameters as measures of amplitude. Usually, the
amplitude metric is based on some function of the measured accel-
eration, like the peak value (e.g., Tamura and Suganuma 1996), the
RMS (e.g., Tamura et al. 1994), or the spectral ordinate of the first
mode (e.g., Bernal et al. 2015). Although some of these metrics
may be appropriate for low-rise buildings whose response is often
dominated by the fundamental mode of vibration, high-rise build-
ings are strongly influenced by higher modes, and experiencing
high levels of acceleration may not necessarily imply large levels
of lateral deformation. Furthermore, buildings experiencing similar
levels of acceleration but having very different fundamental periods
of vibration may have experienced very different levels of lateral
deformation demands. For this reason, this study evaluates possible
changes in damping ratio as a function of the peak roof drift ratio
(PRDR), defined as the peak displacement at roof level relative to
the ground normalized by roof height. This is a commonly used
metric in earthquake engineering to describe the overall, or global,
measure of lateral deformation experienced by a building during an
earthquake. Observations made by other researchers for buildings
under low-amplitude motions show that damping increases with
increasing PRDR, when PRDR is less than 0.01% (Jeary 1986;
Li et al. 2000; Tamura et al. 2000). However, after reaching a cer-
tain amplitude level, damping saturates and may even start decreas-
ing (Fukuwa et al. 1996; Tamura and Suganuma 1996; Tamura
2012; Spence and Kareem 2013; Bernal et al. 2015). Most of these
previous observations have been made under motions in which roof
drift ratios were smaller than 0.01%. A significant increase in

© ASCE 04016144-7 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 1 LA-54 (H = 218 m) 1 LA-52 (H = 218 m) 1 LA-32 (H = 103 m)
5% 5% 5%
Longitudinal Longitudinal Longitudinal
4% Transverse 4% Transverse 4% Transverse
3% 3% 3%

2% 2% 2%

1% 1% 1%

0% 0% 0%
0.00% 0.10% 0.20% 0.30% 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15%
Peak roof drift ratio Peak roof drift ratio Peak roof drift ratio

1 SD-21 (H = 92 m) 1 LA-20 (H = 52 m)
7% 12%
Longitudinal Longitudinal
6%
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10%
Transverse Transverse
5%
8%
4%
6%
3%
4%
2%
1% 2%
0% 0%
0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.00% 0.10% 0.20% 0.30% 0.40%
Peak roof drift ratio Peak roof drift ratio

Fig. 6. Identified damping ratios for the fundamental mode as a function of the peak roof drift ratio

damping has also been observed when comparing values inferred
from ambient vibrations with those from strong-motion data
(Celebi et al. 1993; Celebi 1996). However, there is very little in-
formation regarding the variation of damping with increasing am-
plitude under earthquake ground motions, and buildings that have
several recorded events provide an excellent opportunity to study
this trend. The variation of inferred damping ratios of the funda-
mental mode with changes in PRDR is examined in Fig. 6 for
all buildings with four or more earthquakes recorded in the build-
ing. The plots show the results obtained for all damping ratios, in-
ferred from the various ground motions recorded at each building,
that pass the reliability restrictions previously described. The only
case that shows an increase of damping with amplitude was the
longitudinal direction of LA-54; in all other cases no clear increase
in damping ratio is observed with increases in level of response. To
study the correlation between damping and amplitude, the damping
ratios of each building were normalized by the average of the
damping ratios inferred for each building in earthquakes causing
a PRDR of less than 0.03% in the same building. When the lon-
gitudinal direction of LA-54 was removed from the data set, no
statistical correlation was found between damping and amplitude.
The best example of this lack of correlation is building LA-52,
where the same damping ratio is inferred from earthquakes causing
PRDRs of 0.02 and 0.19%, meaning that an increase of 850%
in the amplitude of the motion does not cause a significant change
in the identified damping ratio. This suggests that the trends
observed under low-amplitude motions in which damping ratios
saturate and do not increase with increasing amplitude may extend
to seismic-induced motion.
they provide information of the best damping ratios to use in con-
nection with the most typical model used in standard engineering
practice. The reliability of the inferred damping ratios was assessed
based on quantifying the sensitivity of the objective function to
changes in the damping ratio and the amplification of lightly
damped roof acceleration spectral ordinates with respect to those
computed with the ground motion. Using only reliable damping
estimates, the variation of the first-mode damping with height
was examined and compared to four different existing damping rec-
ommendations. Results of this investigation concur with previous
investigations that have indicated that damping ratios decrease with
increasing building height and that damping ratios in concrete
structures are higher than those in steel structures. Furthermore,
regardless of the material, it was found that all buildings higher
than 150 m had damping ratios lower than the usual 2.5% used
in seismic design.
Damping ratios associated with higher modes of vibration were
examined for three tall buildings that recorded several earthquakes.
It was found that damping ratios of higher modes increase with the
modal frequency, and it was shown that a linear variation is a better
fit than the commonly used mass-proportional, stiffness-propor-
tional, or Rayleigh damping models. Finally, it was found that
in most cases the damping ratio remains approximately constant
even with tenfold increases in peak roof drift ratios. In one case
the damping ratios decreased with increasing amplitude of defor-
mation. These observations on saturation and possible reductions in
damping ratios for earthquake loading are consistent with previous
observations from wind-induced vibrations and free-vibration tests.

Conclusions
The damping ratios of 14 buildings with 20 stories or more, sub-
jected to earthquake motions, were inferred using a parametric
modal system identification technique. Identified damping ratios
correspond to those that will best reproduce the measured response
of the building of a fixed-base linear elastic model when using as
input at recorded motion at the base of the structure. In other words,
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge CONICYT—Becas Chile,
and the Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford Univer-
sity for the financial aid for to the first author for conducting doc-
toral studies at Stanford under the supervision of the second author.
Ground and structural motions used in this investigation were ob-
tained from the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program
of the California Geological Survey and from the United States

© ASCE 04016144-8 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 2017, 143(1): 04016144

 Geological Survey. Efforts to install, operate, and maintain seismic
instrumentation in buildings as well as to process and disseminate
earthquake records by these organizations are gratefully acknowl-
edged. The authors also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers
for their careful review of our manuscript as well as for their sug-
gestions to improve it.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
Dn ; Ḋn ; D̈n = relative acceleration, velocity, and displacement of
the unit mass SDOF system associated to the nth
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mode of vibration;
g = acceleration of gravity;
J = objective function;
N = number of modes considered to have a significant
influence in the seismic response of the building;
N sen = number of sensors above ground level;
Rn = spectral amplification factor of the nth mode of
vibration;
S̄a ðT n Þ = average of the 1% damped floor acceleration
spectral ordinates evaluated within the period range
defined by ½0.9T n ; 1.1T n , plus 0.01g;
T n = period of the nth mode of vibration;
üg = ground acceleration;
unj , u̇nj , ünj = relative acceleration, velocity, and displacement of
the nth mode of vibration evaluated at the jth
degree of freedom;
üj = measured relative acceleration at the jth degree of
freedom;
û¨ j = predicted relative acceleration at the jth degree of
freedom;
û¨ tj = predicted absolute acceleration at the jth degree of
freedom;
α = lateral stiffness coefficient;
Γn = modal participation factor of the nth mode of
vibration;
Δt = time step of the record;
ξ n = critical damping ratio of the nth mode of vibration;
τ = number of points in the signal;
ϕnj = mode shape for the nth mode of vibration evaluated
at the jth degree of freedom; and
ωn = natural circular frequency of the nth mode of
vibration.
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