• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.2225-2235
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• 2004

An observatory termed 'Steel Swing' has been developed, where a 15000 kg pendulum is hanged from a stiff steel frame. A building element can be tested after inserted between the pendulum and the frame. Free vibration, forced vibration tests and earthquake monitoring were performed on an exposed-type steel column base. The response records monitored during natural earthquakes were used to identify the vibration property of the specimen. Identified system gain was approximated by a theoretical gain of linear SDOF system, and the response calculated based on such a linear system agrees with the monitored response fairly well. This research technique can be applied to check the behaviors of new materials and new details of connections and the safety of non-structural elements as well.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.553-561
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to analytically find the approximate supplement damping ratio of the viscous damper installed in self-centering (SC) single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems with maximum displacements that are similar to those of elasto-plastic (EP) SDOF systems. The behavior of an SC SDOF system under harmonic cyclic loading was first described. Then an analytical model that can capture the behavior of the viscously damped SC SDOF system was introduced. Analysis parameters that characterize the hysteresis of the EP and SC SDOF systems were chosen, and nonlinear time-history analyses were performed using 20 historical accelerograms. Most of the SC SDOF systems with viscous dampers with approximately 10-15% damping ratios presented mean maximum displacement values that were similar to those of the EP SDOF systems. To investigate in detail the seismic performance of both systems, three EP SDOF systems and six corresponding SC SDOF systems were selected. The analyses showed that all the SC SDOF systems eliminated the residual displacements after the end of their shaking, and that the SC SDOF systems with 15% damping ratios performed better than the EP SDOF systems in terms of maximum displacement and acceleration response.