Nonlinear Vibration Control of Adjacent Steel MRF Structures Using Non-velocity Dependent Dampers Subjected to Various Seismic Excitations.

Control of adjacent structures during an earthquake is one of the major challenges in engineering practices. Connecting two structures with the use of a damper is considered to be one of the effective vibration control and reducing damage approaches. Improving the seismic performance of weak structures by connecting them to substructures is an effective method. The type of dampers and the characteristics of input earthquake loading play an important role in the performance of connected buildings. In addition, some previous studies have shown that viscous dampers, besides the problem of sensitivity to temperature and oil leakage, could not be much effective against near-fault records. In this study, the vibration control of smaller frequency structures while connected to robust structures with two types of dampers (i.e., friction and yielding) was investigated Three distinctive sets of earthquake records were considered to be the excitation input data. To this end, three 3-, 5-, and 8-story buildings were selected and the effects of applying friction and yielding dampers to control their vibration while subjected to the abovementioned records were studied. The results imply that both dampers performed well when subjected to near-fault records; however, the performance varies depending on the type of earthquake. A maximum displacement reduction rate of 64% was observed. Friction and yielding dampers have shown more effective performance in the middle and at the top stories, respectively. As the number of stories increased, the effectiveness of lower stories dampers to reduce seismic responses decreased, so their application could be neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]