Seismic progressive collapse mitigation of buildingsusing cylindrical friction damper

Abstract

The occurrence of progressive collapse induced by the removal of the vertical load-bearing element in the structure, because of fire or earthquake, has been a significant challenge between structural engineers. Progressive collapse is defined as the complete failure or failure of a part of the structure, initiating with a local rupture in a part of the building and can threaten the stability of the structure. In the current study, the behavior of the structures equipped with a cylindrical friction damper, when the vertical load-bearing elements are eliminated, is considered in two cases: 1-The load-bearing element is removed under the gravity load, and 2-The load-bearing element is removed due to the earthquake lateral forces. In order to obtain a generalized result in the seismic case, 22 pair motions presented in FEMA p 695 are applied to the structures. The study has been conducted using the vertical push down analysis for the case (1), and the nonlinear time-history analysis for the second case using OpenSEES software for 5,10, and 15-story steel frames. Results indicate that, in the first case, the load coefficient, and accordingly the strength of the structure equipped with cylindrical friction dampers are increased considerably. Furthermore, the results from the second case demonstrate that the displacements, and consequently the forces imposed to the structure in the buildings equipped with the cylindrical friction damper substantially was reduced. An optimum slip load is defined in the friction dampers, which permits the damper to start its frictional damping from this threshold load. Therefore, the optimum slip load of the damper is calculated and discussed for both cases.