A methodology for the integrated seismic design of nonlinear buildings with supplemental damping

Abstract

Summary Designing structures to behave nonlinearly (elastically or inelastically) under strong seismic events has been long recognized to help reducing the seismic forces acting on them. Nonetheless, nonlinear structures often experience larger displacements than their linear counterparts. The concept of allowing nonlinear behavior in structures while capping forces at lower levels and adding viscous damping has been shown to be able to lead to good designs in terms of both levels of seismic forces and peak deformations. This paper presents an approach for the design of nonlinear (elastic or inelastic) structures equipped with viscous dampers that would produce desired levels of inter-story drifts while reducing seismic forces as well. To attain a nonlinear elastic behavior, use could also be made by the negative stiffness device introduced by others. As inter-story drifts are reduced to desired levels, the methodology could naturally be used as part of the performance-based design framework. The values of capping forces and damping coefficients serve as design variables. The capping forces are the yield forces in yielding members and the maximum forces in nonlinear elastic members. The procedure relies on analysis tools only, hence, could be easily incorporated into the practical design process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.