New installation scheme for viscoelastic dampers using cables

Passive energy dissipation devices, such as, viscous, viscoelastic, and friction devices are generally installed in buildings using diagonal or chevron braces. To increase the effective damping force and to reduce the damper volume, various magnifying system of the damper displacement, such as, toggle brace system and scissor-jack-damper configuration have been developed with increase in installation cost. In this study, new installation scheme for passive dampers was proposed using cables installed in such a way that relative displacement equal to storey displacement occurs between the cable and the structure when the structure is subjected to lateral load. The cables can be installed continuously or discretely between base and top storey of the structure. To verify the validity of the proposed method nonlinear dynamic analysis of model structures with viscoelastic dampers installed using the proposed configuration scheme was carried out using three earthquake records and two sinusoidal forces. According to the analysis, the proposed method resulted in significant reduction in the size of dampers compared with the conventional installation methods.