Using viscous and variable friction dampers for improving structural seismic response

Using supplemental dampers is known as an efficient way for improving structural seismic response. Viscous, friction, yielding steel and other types of dampers were developed in the last few decades for this reason and are produced by the industry and used in modern structures and in retrofitted buildings all over the world. This paper is focused on investigating a damping system including viscous and variable friction dampers. Numerical analysis of a multi‐storey structure was carried out. At the first stage, the structure was provided by optimal viscous dampers and its response to a white noise was obtained. According to this response, appropriate parameters of variable friction dampers were obtained using an equivalent energy dissipation hypothesis. At the second stage, dynamic response of the structure under real seismic motions was studied. It was shown that using a hybrid damping system including viscous and variable friction dampers yields essential improvement in structural response and looks attractive for practical implementations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.