Seismic Design and Performance of Reinforced Concrete Special Moment Resisting Frames with Wall Dampers

ABSTRACT

Energy dissipation devices, including viscous wall dampers (VWDs), are effective for enhancing the seismic performance of buildings. Use of VWDs can provide new design opportunities and expand the use of favorable structural systems such as reinforced concrete (RC) special moment resisting frames (SMRF) for taller buildings. The objective of this paper is to evaluate seismic design and performance of a prototype 15-story RC SMRF located in a seismic area in Turkey using VWDs and compare its response to conventional SMRF system. It is demonstrated that with VWDs, it is possible to design flexible SMRFs, satisfying the target performance objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Wall dampers
• reinforced concrete
• special moment resisting frames
• seismic design
• nonlinear response history analysis

Acknowledgments

The first author, Dr Abdullah DILSIZ, acknowledges the grant (Grant 2219) provided through the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) through which he is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Nevada, Reno where this research was conducted. The authors also thank Mr Konrad Eriksen (President) and Dr Ahmed Akl (Senior Engineer) from the Dynamic Isolation Systems Inc., and Dr Martin Button for their technical feedback and support.