Probabilistic seismic analysis of single-layer reticulated shell structures controlled by viscoelastic dampers with an effective placement

Abstract

In this paper, an effective placement of viscoelastic dampers on single-layer reticulated shell structures is proposed to mitigate seismic response. For comparison, an existing placement of viscoelastic dampers is also investigated. The effectiveness of the proposed placement of viscoelastic dampers is investigated from both deterministic and probabilistic perspectives. The single-layer reticulated shell structure is driven by the stochastic seismic ground motions, which are modeled via the random function based spectral representation method. The probability density evolution method is then implemented for probabilistic response and reliability analyses of the shell structure. A series of deterministic numerical simulations are first implemented under different earthquake excitations, including both actual and artificial seismic ground motions, to compare the control effects in deterministic sense. Then, the control effects of the proposed placement and the existing placement are compared in probabilistic sense, where the probabilistic responses, equivalent extreme value distributions and failure probabilities are extracted. Numerical results demonstrate that the seismic performance of the shell structure can be greatly improved by arranging the viscoelastic dampers with the proposed placement.