Shaking table test on a novel mega-frame suspended structural system

This paper designed a 1/20 scaled two-segment 19-story mega-frame suspended structure. The seismic behaviors of the structure equipped with viscous dampers (named damping suspended structure, DSS) or rigid connecting rods (named normal suspended structure, NSS) were studied and evaluated by a series of shaking table tests, where three seismic ground motions with two intensities were selected as input motions. Both acceleration and displacement responses of the primary and suspended structures were recorded. The results revealed that the mega-frame suspended system showed good seismic behaviors and viscous dampers could effectively improve its energy dissipation capacities. For DSS, the maximal acceleration and displacement reduction of suspended structures were 75.4% and 39.8% while those of the primary structure were 29.4% and 35.3% respectively. White noise tests showed all models were at the elastic stage under all cases. Evident relative displacements between the primary and subordinate structures were observed for DSS, in this case, the suspended floors were considered as the additional mass of the primary structure and the energy could be dissipated by the swing of suspended floors. The energy dissipation mechanism of DSS was theoretically analyzed while the effect of connection forms on vibration reduction was discussed. •A 1/20 scaled two-segment 19-story mega-frame suspended structure was designed, and shaking table tests were conducted.•The maximal vibration reductions of displacement and acceleration were 39.8% and 75.4% respectively for the DSS.•The energy dissipation mechanism was theoretically analyzed for the vibration reduction suspended system.