• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.1001-1025
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• 2016

Building structures generally have inherent low damping capability and hence are vulnerable to seismic excitations. Control devices therefore play a useful role in providing safety to building structures subject to seismic events. In recent years semi-active dampers have gained considerable attention as structural control devices in the building construction industry. Magneto-rheological (MR) damper, a type of semi-active damper has proven to be effective in seismic mitigation of building structures. MR dampers contain a controllable MR fluid whose rheological properties vary rapidly with the applied magnetic field. Although some research has been carried out on the use of MR dampers in building structures, optimal design of MR damper and combined use of MR and passive dampers for real scale buildings has hardly been investigated. This paper investigates the use of MR dampers and incorporating MR-passive damper combinations in building structures in order to achieve acceptable levels of seismic performance. In order to do so, it first develops the MR damper model by integrating control algorithms commonly used in MR damper modelling. The developed MR damper is then integrated in to the seismically excited structure as a time domain function. Linear and nonlinear structure models are evaluated in real time scenarios. Analyses are conducted to investigate the influence of location and number of devices on the seismic performance of the building structure. The findings of this paper provide information towards the design and construction of earthquake safe buildings with optimally employed MR dampers and MR-passive damper combinations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.181-195
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• 2010

Coupled building control is a viable method to protect tall buildings from seismic excitation. In this study, the semi-active control of a building complex is investigated for mitigating seismic responses. The building complex is formed of one main building and one podium structure connected through Magneto-Rheological (MR) Dampers and Tuned Mass Damper. The conventional semi-active control techniques require a primary controller as a reference to determine the desired control force, and modulate the input voltage of the MR damper by comparing the desired control force. The fuzzy logic directly determines the input voltage of an MR damper from the response of the MR damper. The control performance of the proposed fuzzy control technique for the MR damper is evaluated for the control problem of a seismically-excited building complex. In this paper, a building complex that include a 14-story main building and an 8-story podium structure is applied as a numerical example to demonstrate the effectiveness of semi-active control with Magneto-Rheological dampers and its comparison with the passive control with the Tuned Mass Damper and two uncoupled buildings and hybrid semi-active control including the Tuned Mass Damper and Magneto-Rheological dampers while they are subject to the earthquake excitation. The numerical results show that semi-active control and hybrid semi-active control can significantly mitigate the seismic responses of both buildings, such as displacement and shear force responses, and fuzzy control technique can effectively mitigate the seismic response of the building complex.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.175-194
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• 2016

Based on the change of traditional viscoelastic damper structure, a brand-new damper is designed to control simultaneously the translational vibration and the rotational vibration for platforms. Experimental study has been carried out on the mechanical properties of viscoelastic material and on its multi-dimensional seismic response control effect of viscoelastic damper. Three types of viscoelastic dampers with different shapes of viscoelastic material are designed to test the influence of excited frequency, strain amplitude and ambient temperature on the mechanical property parameters such as circular dissipation per unit, equivalent stiffness, loss factor and storage shear modulus. Then, shaking table tests are done on a group of single-storey platform systems containing one symmetric platform and three asymmetric platforms with different eccentric forms. Experimental results show that the simulation precision of the restoring force model is rather good for the shear deformation of viscoelastic damper and is also satisfied for the torsion deformation and combined deformations of viscoelastic damper. The shaking table tests have verified that the new-type viscoelastic damper is capable of mitigating the multi-dimensional seismic response of offshore platform.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.361-367
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• 2018

This study investigates the seismic performance of a hybrid seismic energy dissipation device composed of a viscoelastic damper and a steel slit damper connected in parallel. A moment-framed structure is designed without seismic load and is retrofitted with the hybrid dampers. The model structure is transformed into an equivalent simplified system to find out optimum story-wise damper distribution pattern using genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the hybrid damper is investigated by fragility analysis of the structure with and without the dampers. The analysis results show that after seismic retrofit the probability of reaching damage states, especially the complete damage state, of the structure turn out to be significantly reduced.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.221-227
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• 2019

In this paper passive seismic retrofit devices for building structures developed by the author in recent years are introduced. The proposed damping devices were developed by slightly modifying the configuration of conventional devices and enhancing their effectiveness. First a seismic retrofit system consisting of a pin-jointed steel frame and rotational friction dampers installed at each corner of the steel frame was developed. Then two types of steel slit dampers were developed; box-type slit damper and multi-slit damper. In addition, hybrid dampers were developed by combining a slit damper and a friction damper connected in parallel. Finally a self-centering system was developed by using preloaded tendons and viscous dampers connected in series. For each retrofit system developed, an appropriate analytical model was developed, and the seismic performance was verified by loading test and earthquake analysis of case study structures. The experimental and analysis results show that the proposed systems can be used efficiently to enhance the seismic performance of building structures.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1325-1335
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• 2018

This study dealt with investigating the seismic performance of the smart and shape memory alloy (SMA) and magnets plus rubber-spring (MRS) dampers and their effects on the seismic resistance of multiple-span simply supported bridges. The rubber springs in the MRS dampers were pre-compressed. For this aim, a set of experimental works was performed together with developing nonlinear analytical models to investigate dynamic responses of the bridges subjected to earthquakes. Fragility analysis and probabilistic assessment were conducted to assess the seismic performance for the overall bridge system. Fragility curves were then generated for each model and were compared with those of as-built. Results showed dampers could increase the seismic capacity of bridges. Furthermore, from system fragility curves, use of damper models reduced the seismic vulnerability in comparison to the as-built bridge model. Although the SMA damper showed the best seismic performance, the MRS damper was the most appropriate one for the bridge in that the combination of magnetic friction and pre-compressed rubber springs was cheaper than the shape memory alloy, and had the similar capability of the damper.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.8
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• pp.953-974
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• 2010

The performance of variable dampers for seismic protection of the benchmark highway bridge (phase I) under six real earthquake ground motions is presented. A simplified lumped mass finite-element model of the 91/5 highway bridge in Southern California is used for the investigation. A variable damper, developed from magnetorheological (MR) damper is used as a semi-active control device and its effectiveness with friction force schemes is investigated. A velocity-dependent damping model of variable damper is used. The effects of friction damping of the variable damper on the seismic response of the bridge are examined by taking different values of friction force, step-coefficient and transitional velocity of the damper. The seismic responses with variable dampers are compared with the corresponding uncontrolled case, and controlled by alternate sample control strategies. The results of investigation clearly indicate that the base shear, base moment and mid-span displacement are substantially reduced. In particular, the reduction in the bearing displacement is quite significant. The friction and the two-step friction force schemes of variable damper are found to be quite effective in reducing the peak response quantities of the bridge to a level similar to or better than that of the sample passive, semi-active and active controllers.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.35-42
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• 2017

This study develops a new hybrid passive energy dissipation device for seismic rehabilitation of an existing structure. The device is composed of a friction damper combined with a steel plate with vertical slits as a hysteretic damper. Analytical model is developed for the device, and the capacity of the hybrid device to satisfy a given target performance is determined based on the ASCE/SEI 7-10 process. The effect of the device is verified by nonlinear dynamic analyses using seven earthquake records. The analysis results show that the dissipated inelastic energy is concentrated on the hybrid damper and the maximum interstory drift of the SMRF with damping system satisfies the requirement of the current code.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.473-484
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• 2017

In this study a seismic retrofit scheme for a building structure was presented using steel plate slit dampers. The energy dissipation capacity of the slit damper used in the retrofit was verified by cyclic loading test. Genetic algorithm was applied to find out the optimum locations of the slit dampers satisfying the target displacement. The seismic retrofit of the model structure using the slit dampers was compared with the retrofit with enlarging shear walls. A simple damper distribution method was proposed using the capacity spectrum method along with the damper distribution pattern proportional to the inter-story drifts. The validity of the simple story-wise damper distribution procedure was verified by comparing the results of genetic algorithm. It was observed that the capacity-spectrum method combined with the simple damper distribution pattern leaded to satisfactory story-wise distribution of dampers compatible with the optimum solution obtained from genetic algorithm.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2016

The uneven distribution of rolling friction coefficient may lead to great uncertainty in the structural seismic isolation performance. This paper attempts to improve the isolation performance of a spring-damper-rolling isolation system by artificially making the uneven friction distribution to be concave. The rolling friction coefficient gradually increases when the isolator rolls away from the original position during an earthquake. After the spring-damper-rolling isolation system under different ground motions was calculated by a numerical analysis method, the system obtained more regular results than that of random uneven friction distributions. Results shows that the concave friction distribution can not only dissipate the earthquake energy, but also change the structural natural period. These functions improve the seismic isolation efficiency of the spring-damper-rolling isolation system in comparison with the random uneven distribution of rolling friction coefficient, and always lead to a relatively acceptable isolation state even if the actual earthquake significantly differs from the design earthquake.