July 2013

Viscous Dampers Save Steel

Structures from Earthquake Damage
By

David Lee, Ph.D.

West Coast Technical Director
Taylor Devices, In.

And

Douglas P. Taylor
President
Taylor Devices, Inc.

David Lee, Ph.D.

West Coast Technical Director
Taylor Devices, In.

____________________________________________________________________________
(A copy of this report can be downloaded for personal use from www.steeltips.org)
 Viscous Dampers Save Structures from Earthquake Damage

Structures from Earthquakes

By: David Lee, Ph.D. and Douglas P. Taylor

Viscous dampers now protect over 450 structures throughout the world from earthquakes.
These dampers cut drift in half, greatly reduce shear forces, and make structures safe for their
contents by reducing shaking to only 25 or 30% of what happens in unprotected structures.

Structural Engineers can now design structures with immediate occupancy after a major event,
at no additional cost over basic code design. The dampers decrease loads enough to
significantly reduce the amount of steel and concrete, enough to offset the cost of the dampers.
The added protection is essentially free.

Refurbishment of existing structures with dampers is often the least costly way to provide
seismic protection. Taylor Devices can lower insurance premiums significantly, and greatly
lessen the probability of lost income.

Viscous dampers have been used on well over 450 structures. A list is included in this paper as
an Appendix. Some sample projects are described in this report, along with the story of how
all this happened.

First Printing, July 2013.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Douglas P. Taylor, President. Taylor Devices, Inc.. 90 Taylor Drive,. North Tonawanda, NY
14120. 716-694-0800
taylordevi@aol.com Web Site www.taylordevices.com

______________________________________________________________________________
______________ David Lee, Ph.D., West Coast Technical Director, Taylor Devices, Inc, 2112
Wilshire Boulevard
Disclaimer: #604,
The information SantainMonica,
presented CA 90403,
this publication has been 310-396-5459, davidlee9@aol.com
prepared in accordance with recognized engineering
principles and is for general information only. While it is believed to be accurate, this information should not be used or
relied upon for any specific application without competent professional examination and verification of its accuracy,
suitability, and applicability by a licensed professional engineer, designer or architect. The publication of the material
contained herein is not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of the Structural Steel Educational Council or
of any other person named herein, that this information is suitable for any general or particular use or of freedom from
______________________________________________________________________________
infringement of any patent or patents. Anyone making use of this information assumes all liability arising from such use.
______________
Caution must be exercised when relying upon specifications and codes developed by others and incorporated by reference
This report
herein is Copyright
since such material mayofbe the above
modified author(s).
or amended from All
time rights reserved.to the printing of this document. The
to time subsequent
______________________________________________________________________________
Structural Steel Educational Council or the authors bear no responsibility for such material other than to refer to it and
incorporate
______________it by reference at the time of the initial publication of this document.

1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The publication of this report was made possible in part by the support of the Structural Steel
Educational Council (SSEC).

The authors wish to thank Michael Constantinou, Ph.D. of the State University of New York,
Buffalo Campus, for all his help in making structural dampers a reality. We also wish to thank
all the good people of Taylor Devices, Inc. for their past and continuing work in developing
new and better viscous dampers, and for keeping up with the steadily increasing demand.

2
 Viscous Dampers Save
Structures from Earthquake Damage

By:

David Lee, Ph.D., West Coast Technical Director, Taylor Devices,

Inc.

Douglas P. Taylor, President, Taylor Devices, Inc.

__________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT / Page 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / Page 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS / Page 3

INTRODUCTION/ Page 4

CHAPTER 1. BUILDINGS/ PAGE 4

CHAPTER 2. BRIDGES/ PAGE 9

CHAPTER 3. OTHER PROJECTS/ PAGE 12

CHAPTER 4. THE HISTORY OF VISCOUS DAMPERS IN STRUCTURES/ PAGE 13

REFERENCES / Page 18

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) / Page 19

LIST OF PUBLISHED STEEL TIPS REPORTS / Page 20

_________________________________________________________________________

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 1. Introduction
The addition of viscous dampers to an existing structure can provide
significantly improved seismic performance. Seismic shaking of two to four
times code maximum will cause cosmetic damage only, permitting
immediate occupancy after an event. Both analysis and tests referenced in
this report show these results.

Incorporation of viscous dampers in a new structure provides similar levels of

protectionthe ability to withstand two to four times maximum expected
shaking with only cosmetic damage. There is another benefit as wellit is
possible with correct design to reduce the amount of steel in the structure
enough to offset the cost of the dampers. The owner gets a building that is
highly resistant to earthquakes at no additional costpossibly even a cost
savings.

Viscous dampers soak up the earthquake energy so the steel in the structure
no longer needs to bend back and forth and yield, or at least not nearly as
much. The beams and columns no longer need to yield and heat up, like a
paper clip that is bent back and forth repeatedly as it absorbs energy. A
building without dampers is like a car with bad shocksit bounces around a
lot in an earthquake. The viscous dampers smooth out the ride.

Viscous dampers have been used on well over 450 structures. A list is
included here as a link(http://taylordevices.com/pdf/StructuralChart2010.pdf)
Here is another link that leads to almost 100 technical papers showing
various applications, analyses and tests of viscous dampers for structures.
(http://taylordevices.com/literature.html) Some sample projects are described
in this report.

Chapter 1

Buildings that use Viscous Dampers

Colorado Center in Santa Monica, California

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The Colorado Center has six steel frame buildings, built in the 80s and 90s.
All six of these three to six story buildings have been refurbished with
dampers to make them earthquake resistant per todays requirements. Both
the buildings and the occupants are now protected.

James and Ken Lord of Lord Ficks Zayed and Associates, the structural
engineers on this project, did a fine job in designing the earthquake
strengthening of this building. They had to install dampers in a number of
difficult locations. Here are some of them:

5
In the loading dock

6
 In the Dry Cleaning Shop In the Fitness Center

Our thanks to Barrett Stone (senior property manager) and Alan Gaskell
(chief engineer) for all their help with this project.

Arrowhead Regional Medical Center

Formerly the San Bernardino Hospital, the new Arrowhead Regional Medical
Center is in Colton, California near the intersection of three major faults.
Five separate buildings, all on elastomeric base isolators. The predicted
seismic induced displacement of +/- four feet was too much at that time not
only for the isolators, but also for the movable walkways between buildings
and the utilities that feed the buildings. Our dampers reduced this motion to a
little under +/- two feet, which was acceptable.

7
These dampers were the largest that we had made at that time320 kips.
Now our limit is around 2000 kips, and the limitation is the size of high alloy
steel tubing that can be extruded. If we could get bigger tubes we could
make even larger dampers. Heres what the installation looks like:

8
Doug Taylor, president of Taylor Devices, is very proud of our performance
on this project. His foot points to the first prototype unit that we made. It
passed all qualification and life cycle tests required by both the owner and
OSHPD. Later it was delivered to the job site and put on display outside one
of the buildings. You can tour the installation if you wish.

Chapter 2

Two Bridges that use viscous dampers

The Millennium pedestrian bridge across the Thames in London is possibly

the most beautiful pedestrian bridge in the world. It is a suspension bridge,
and the suspension cables are highly angled instead of vertical. The bridge

9
had to be closed two days after opening. It shook so badly that people were
falling down.

The bridge designers acted quickly and efficiently to find a way to correct
this problem. After a lot of consideration they decided to add viscous
dampers to eliminate the shaking. The dampers block the vibration but still
permit thermally induced deformations. They work perfectlyvibration was
reduced by a factor of 40/1.

The dampers that we supplied are very special. They dont have our standard
lip type seals, but instead use a labyrinth seal with no friction and no rubbing
surfaces. Metal bellows contain the fluid, so there is infinite life and
essentially zero friction, which is perfect for this bridge.

Some of the Taylor seismic dampers are immense. The Sutong Bridge in
China has some of the biggest dampers that we have ever made. It is the
longest cable stay bridge in the world.
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The Sutong Bridge dampers, besides being huge, are special in another way.
They have elastomer springs at each end of travel, to provide extra seismic
protection. This feature can be added to any of our dampers. The spring can
also be continuous, so it acts throughout the stroke. Our spring dampers can
add stiffness to a structure as well as viscous damping.

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Chapter 3

Some Very Special Dampers

Boat Seat Shock Absorber

The boats that transport the Navy Seals are very fast, and very rough. So
rough that the Seals cant take it for more than eight hours at a time, and
sometimes get injured. We designed a shock absorbing seat that makes the
ride as smooth as a luxury sedan.

The Negative Spring

Not content with the successful application of structural damping, and

inventing a bunch of other amazing things, Dr. Constantinou recently created
a new way to mitigate earthquakesthe negative spring. Taylor Devices
designed the mechanism to do this. A conventional spring pushes back. The
more it deflects, the harder it pushes back to its neutral position. A negative
spring does the reversethe more it moves away from neutral, the more it
pushes itself away from its center point. By itself a negative spring is very
unstable, something like a cocked mousetrap. Add it to a structure and the
period gets longer, moving the base resonance away from the earthquake
frequency. Heres a picture of some of the testing of this remarkable
concept:

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Chapter 4

The History of Viscous Dampers in Structures How it all happened

Viscous dampers now protect over 450 structures throughout the world from
earthquakes. These dampers cut drift in half, greatly reduce shear forces, and
make structures safe for their contents by reducing shaking to only 25 or 30%
of what happens in unprotected structures.

20 years ago no one had heard of viscous dampers for structures. Now they
are a standard way to protect structures. How did this happen?

We owe it all to the MX missile, that huge nuclear deterrent of the 1970s and
1980s that carried multiple warheads. Authorized by President Carter in
1972 and cancelled years later by President Reagan as sort of a mercy
killing, due to the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
During its life a number of very freaky basing modes were seriously
evaluated. One was known as Deep Base MX.

13
First find a huge mesa with a large flat top and hollow it out. Then fill the
interior caves with MX missiles & support equipment, plus huge tunneling
machines. Now wait for Armageddon. After a nuclear attack the tunneling
machines bore out 15 degree inclined exit tunnels, clearing the way to the
outside walls of the mesa. Then drive huge transporter erector missiles
through the tunnels to the outside, tilt the MX missiles to vertical, and fire
away. Heres a picture:

Naturally all the equipment inside the mesa had to be protected from nuclear
blast. So the Air Force gave us a small contract for a preliminary design of a
number of shock isolation systems.

The State of New York at that time had a grant program for any company
doing SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research). All we needed to get
their $25,000 gift was a one page description of how we would use the
money. We used it to develop seismic dampers.

Our first step was to find a University to work with us. CalTech was not
interested because they did not work with the nuts and bolts of seismic
protection. Cal Berkeley was overloaded with other work. But Dr. Michael
Constantinou, a newcomer to State University of New York Buffalo Campus
was happy to work with us. He was doing research at that time on added
damping for seismic protection. He found that damping greatly increased
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earthquake resistance. But the visco-elastic dampers he had been using
stiffened up at the velocities encountered in many earthquakes. The Taylor
dampers were good at high speeds- even the 30 ft/sec ground shaking speeds
associated with nuclear weapons detonations. This allowed much higher
damping ratios to be used. Dr. Constantinous first experiments using our
dampers were with 25% damping- with dramatic improvement over earlier
approaches. In most cases, the simple addition of dampers "borrowed" from
the US nuclear missile programs offered a reduction of seismic loads within a
steel building structure of a factor of nearly three- with no changes needed to
the structure itself. Heres an early test:

The tests showed that Dr. Constantinous predictions were correct; dampers
reduced drift by 50% or more, and reduced inter-story shear by about the
same amount.

We then received an even larger contract for detail design of the Deep Base
isolators, which we completed. Then the program was dropped. Something

15
to do with cost, and the fact that every tunneling machine in the world would
still not be near enough.

An even wilder MX basing scheme was the Carter plan, which had 400
missiles scattered amongst 4000 identical launch buildings that were
connected by roads. The missiles could be shuffled from one launch building
to another so no one could tell which ones were which. This confused the
enemy. There were too many potential missile sites to attack all at once.

Later, under Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, the number of sites

was greatly reduced, and they were all located in a small area. This was
called Dense Pack. The idea here was to have such massive retaliatory power
that no one would dare attack us. If they did attack, the nuclear blasts from
that many warheads would cause fratricidethey would detonate each other
relatively harmlessly. Fortunately this was never tested. It was not one of
our brightest defense plans.

Around that time we did a lot of work on nuclear blast protection for missiles.
We designed and built and tested( without nuclear explosions, of course) full
size prototype dampers for Mobile Minuteman ( Minuteman IV, fore-runner
to MX), as well as the Dense Pack and Multiple Protective Shelter systems.

At the same time we were in full scale production of dampers for US Navy
ship based nuclear missiles- with more than 23,000 dampers manufactured
for the Navy during the Cold War years.

The Dense Pack shock absorbers were our greatest challenge. These dampers
had a piston rod that was more than 20 feet long. This was what we needed
to protect the missiles against nuclear blast. We had very limited space, as
both the silos and the launch buildings had already been designed. We had a
huge ground shock input, and only limited rattle space. It took everything we
had to come up with an isolation system.

Heres what we came up with for the earlier Carter system. These dampers
had 4 feet of stroke, and were the basis for the dampers that we built for the
San Bernardino Medical Center, which was described earlier.

16
17
These were very big dampers, especially at that time. But, by coincidence,
just about right for huge buildings and bridges. So when the need developed
to protect structures from earthquakes, we were ready. In fact, designing
dampers for earthquake protection of structures was much easier that
designing dampers for nuclear blast. We have now installed Taylor Dampers
on over 450 projects.

References

Here is a link that leads to over 100 technical papers showing various
applications, analyses and tests of viscous dampers for structures.
http://taylordevices.com/literature.html

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About the Authors:

David Lee, Ph.D. is West Coast Technical Director for Taylor Devices,
Inc. He has invented a number of novel viscous damper configurations,
and has published 12 technical papers in this field. He manages the
West Coast technical operations and marketing for Taylor Devices.
Douglas P. Taylor is president of Taylor Devices Inc., located in North
Tonawanda, NY. He has held this position since 1991. He has been
with Taylor Devices since 1965.
At the end of the Cold War in 1990 Mr. Taylor conceived and
developed the concept of using large damping devices from U.S.
Ballistic Missile Programs for earthquake protection of buildings and
bridges. This technology transfer to the private sector has proven highly
successful, and Mr. Taylor's contributions in this area have been
acknowledged as significant by the U.S. Department of Defense. Doug
Taylor has over 30 patents relating to viscous dampers, has published
over 55 technical papers, and has won many awards.

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 List of Published Steel TIPS Reports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
July '13: The Manufacture and Supply of Structural Steel by Max D. Powell
July '11: Steel Plate Shear Walls-Performance Based Design by Nabih Youssef, Ryan Wilkerson and Daniel Tunick
July '11: Welding of Seismically-Resistant Steel Structures by Duane K. Miller
April '11: Notes on Gusset Plates in Steel Trusses-Evaluation, Repair and Retrofit by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asi and
Wahid Tadros
March '11: The Design of Continuity Plate Welds in Special Moment Frames by Chia-Ming Uang, Andy Tran and
Patrick M. Hassett
May 10: Notes on Blast Resistance of Steel and Composite Building Structures, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
April 10: Gusset Plates in Steel Bridges-Design and Evaluation, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
April 10: Steel Plate Shear Walls: An Option for Lateral Resistance in High-Rise Core Wall Buildings, by James O.
Malley
Dec.09: Economy of Steel-Framed Buildings for Seismic Loading, by Christopher Hewitt, Rafael Sabelli, and
Jayson Bray.
Oct.08: A Comparison of Frame Stability Analysis Methods in AISC 360-05, by Charles J. Carter and
Louis F. Gerschwinder.
Sept.08: Quality Assured Steel Bridge Fabrication and Erection, by Jay P. Murphy
June 08: Seismic Behavior and Design of Base Plates in Braced Frames, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
April 08: Cost-Effective Steel Bridge Fabrication and Erection, by Jay P. Murphy.
June 07: Early California Accelerated Steel Bridge Construction, by Jay P. Murphy.
June 07: Design of RBS Connections for Special Moment Frames, by Kevin S. Moore and Joyce Y. Feng.
May 07: Progressive Collapse Prevention of Steel Frames with Shear Connections, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Jan.07: Seismic Detailing of Special Concentrically Braced Frames, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Michael Cochran,
and Rafael Sabelli.
Aug. 06: Alfred Zampa Memorial Steel Suspension Bridge, by Alfred Mangus, Sarah Picker
July 06: Buckling & Fracture of Concentric Braces Under Inelastic Loading, by B. Fell, A. Kanvinde, G. Deierlein, A.
Myers, and X. Fu.
Aug. 05: Steel Angle & Tee Connections for Gravity and Seismic Loads, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
May 05: Design of Shear Tab Connections for Gravity and Seismic Loads, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Jul. 04: Buckling Restrained Braced Frames, by Walterio A. Lopez and Rafael Sabelli.
May 04: Special Concentric Braced Frames, by Michael Cochran and William Honeck.
Dec. 03: Steel Construction in the New Millennium, by Patrick M. Hassett.
Aug.02: Cost Consideration for Steel Moment Frame Connections, by Patrick M. Hassett and James J. Putkey.
June 02: Use of Deep Columns in Special Steel Moment Frames, by Jay Shen, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl and
David McCallen.
May 02: Seismic Behavior and Design of Composite Steel Plate Shear Walls, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Sept. 01: Notes on Design of Steel Parking Structures Including Seismic Effects, by Lanny J. Flynn, and Abolhassan
Astaneh-Asl.
Jun '01: Metal Roof Construction on Large Warehouses or Distribution Centers, by John L. Mayo.
Mar. 01: Large Seismic Steel Beam-to-Column Connections, by Egor P. Popov and Shakhzod M.Takhirov.
Jan 01: Seismic Behavior and Design of Steel Shear Walls, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Oct. '99: Welded Moment Frame Connections with Minimal Residual Stress, by Alvaro L. Collin and James J.
Putkey.
Aug. '99: Design of Reduced Beam Section (RBS) Moment Frame Connections, by Kevin S. Moore, James O. Malley
and Michael D. Engelhardt.
July '99: Practical Design and Detailing of Steel Column Base Plates, by William C. Honeck and Derek Westphal.
Dec. '98: Seismic Behavior and Design of Gusset Plates, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Mar. '98: Compatibility of Mixed Weld Metal, by Alvaro L. Collin and James J. Putkey.
Aug. '97: Dynamic Tension Tests of Simulated Moment Resisting Frame Weld Joints, by Eric J. Kaufmann.

20
Apr. '97: Seismic Design of Steel Column-Tree Moment-Resisting Frames, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Jan. '97: Reference Guide for Structural Steel Welding Practices.
Dec. '96: Seismic Design Practice for Eccentrically Braced Frames (Based on the 1994 UBC), by Roy Becker and
Michael Ishler.
Nov. '95: Seismic Design of Special Concentrically Braced Steel Frames, by Roy Becker.
Jul. '95: Seismic Design of Bolted Steel Moment-Resisting Frames, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl.
Apr. '95: Structural Details to Increase Ductility of Connections, by Omer W. Blodgett.
Dec. '94: Use of Steel in the Seismic Retrofit of Historic Oakland City Hall, by William Honeck & Mason Walters.
Dec '93: Common Steel Erection Problems and Suggested Solutions, by James J. Putkey.
Oct. '93: Heavy Structural Shapes in Tension Applications.
Mar. '93: Structural Steel Construction in the '90s, by F. Robert Preece and Alvaro L. Collin.
Aug. '92: Value Engineering and Steel Economy, by David T. Ricker.
Oct. '92: Economical Use of Cambered Steel Beams.
Jul. '92: Slotted Bolted Connection Energy Dissipaters, by Carl E. Grigorian, Tzong-Shuoh Yang and Egor P. Popov.
Jun. '92: What Design Engineers Can Do to Reduce Fabrication Costs, by Bill Dyker and John D. Smith.
Apr. '92: Designing for Cost Efficient Fabrication, by W.A. Thornton.
Jan. '92: Steel Deck Construction.
Sep. '91: Design Practice to Prevent Floor Vibrations, by Farzad Naeim.
Mar. '91: LRFD-Composite Beam Design with Metal Deck, by Ron Vogel.
Dec. '90: Design of Single Plate Shear Connections, by Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Steven M. Call and Kurt M.
McMullin.
Nov. '90: Design of Small Base Plates for Wide Flange Columns, by W.A. Thornton.
May '89: The Economies of LRFD in Composite Floor Beams, by Mark C. Zahn.
Jan. '87: Composite Beam Design with Metal Deck.
Feb. '86: UN Fire Protected Exposed Steel Parking Structures.
Sep. '85: Fireproofing Open-Web Joists & Girders.
Nov. '76: Steel High-Rise Building Fire.

21
 STRUCTURAL STEEL EDUCATIONAL COUNCIL

3650 Mt. Diablo Blvd. Suite 201

Lafayette, CA 94549
Phone: (510) 835-5035
Fax: (510) 863-5015

Steel TIPS may be viewed and downloaded at www.steeltips.org

Steel

Participating Members of SSEC

ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH-ASL, Ph.D., P.E.; UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
MICHAEL COCHRAN, S.E.; WIEDLINGER ASSOCIATES, INC.
RICH DENIO, S.E.; RUTHERFORD & CHEKENE
RICH DEVEAU; ALBANY STEEL, INC.
PATRICK M. HASSETT, S.E.; HASSETT ENGINEERING, INC.
BRETT MANNING, S.E.; SCHUFF STEEL CO.
KEVIN MOORE, S.E.; SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER
JAY MURPHY; MURPHY PACIFIC CORPORATION
RICHARD PERSONS; PERSONS & ASSOCIATES
PAUL RANGEL; PDM STEEL SERVICE CENTERS, INC.
DAVID LEE, Ph.D.; TAYLOR DEVICES, INC.
SSEC Corporate Sponsors:
Taylor Devices
Intelligent Engineering
Contego International

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