I

REDUCTION OF POUNDING AND LATERAL-TORSIONAL COUPLING

OF R/C FRAMES UNDER SIEMIC LOAD









IBRAHIM AHMED LIBAN








Project Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia,
in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Structural
Engineering and Construction
17
th
/ May/2011

II


III

ABSTRACT
This project focuses on the validation of passive control systems that can effectively
reduce seismic responses due to pounding and torsional coupling in adjacent and
asymmetrical RC frame building structures. Due to their attractive characteristics for
seismic response control, passive control systems using viscous dampers are
specifically examined in their application in actual RC buildings.
To verify the applicability of the proposed passive control system to pounding and
torsional coupled response reduction in adjacent and asymmetric building
respectively, numerical studies were conducted using a Finite element code. The
three actual RC frame structures examined here were selected from literature and
model using F.E code.
For pounding mitigation investigation two adjacent buildings with 2 cm gap were
select while the other two models were 3D uni-asymmetrical and bi-asymmetrical
structures which were used in the investigation of lateral-torsional response control.
For the uni-asymmetrical model, eccentricity due to stiffness distribution in the
lateral load resisting members resulted in the uni-asymmetrical model while for the
bi-asymmetrical model the asymmetry was due to the plan layout of frames.
Through the work conducted in this project it was found that viscous dampers are
effective in controlling the structural response in both pounding and lateral-torsional
responses.




IV

ABSTRAK
Objektif utama di dalam projek ini adalah untuk mengesahkan samaada sistem
kawalan pasif dapat mengurangkan secara berkesan gerak balas seismos yang di
sebabkan oleh daya godaman dan kilasan gandingan pada rangka stuktur bangunan
konkrit tetulang yang terletak bersebelahan and asimetrik. Sistem kawalan pasif yang
di kaji di dalam projek ini adalah sistem kawalan yang menggunakan perendam likat
(viscous damper).
Untuk pengesahan, kajian berangka dengan menggunakan kaedah unsur terhingga
telah di gunakan. Tiga bangunan sediaada telah di pilih dari literatur dan rangka
stuktur bangunan konkrit tetulang bagi ketiga-tiga bangunan tersebut telah di
modelkan mengikut kod unsur terhingga.
Bagi kajian projek ini, rangka stuktur bangunan konkrit tetulang telah di modelkan
seperti berikut :-
i. Jarak di antara bangunan bersebelahan adalah sebanyak 2 centimeter
ii. Model uni asimetrikal 3 Dimensi
iii. Model dwi asimetrikal 3 Dimensi
Dari keputusan kajian dan analisa, secara keseluruhan dapat disimpulkan bahawa
sistem kawalan pasif yang menggunakan perendam likat (viscous damper) didapati
berkesan dalam mengawal tindakbalas struktur di sebabkan oleh daya godaman dan
kilasan gandingan lateral yang di sebabkan oleh gerak balas seismos.




V























I would like to dedicate this work to my mother who has been my back bone in all
my lifes endeavors, my brother and sisters for always believing in me and my better
half to whom I look forward to sharing my life
VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to address my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jamaloddin Noorzaei for
accepting me as a graduate student under his supervision and for keeping giving me
valuable advice and suggestions. I have learned a lot from him, not only on research
itself but also on how to think as a researcher and how to get through difficult
situations. I have always been encouraged by him to complete my degree. Without
his direction, this project would not have been completed.

Also, I would like to express my gratitude to my doctoral lecturers ,Professor.Ir.Dr.
Mohd Saleh b.Jaafar, Ir.Dr. Raizal Saifulnaz b.Muhammad, Dr.Farah Nora Aznieta
bt. Abd Aziz for providing me with valuable advice and comments. This dissertation
has been improved by their advice and comments.
I would also like to express my graduate to Mr. Farzad Hejazi PhD candidate for all
the contributions made. For kindly giving your time during the analysis part of the
project i thank you bro.
I would also like to thank the team of PhD candidates at Itma for their valuable
advises on how to tackle certain problems faced during the writing of this project.
I would also like to thank my fellow comrades at the department for making this
journey through life a blessing, I learned a great deal from you all. You made this
journey worth a while. I thank you for the moments of joy which will definitely
make good stories worth tell to the future Ibrahim juniors.

VII

APRROVAL SHEET
I certify that an Examination Committee has met on 17 may 2011 to conduct the final
examination of Ibrahim Ahmed Liban on his Master degree project entitled:
Reduction of pounding and lateral-torsional coupling of RC frames under seismic
load in accordance with Universiti Putra Malaysia (Higher Degree) act of 1980 and
Universiti Putra Malaysia (Higher Degree) Regulations 1981. The committee
recommends that the student be awarded the Master of structural and Construction
engineering
Jamaloddin Noorzaei Professor. Madhya Dr. ------------------------------
(Project supervisor) Date
Engineering Faculty ------------------------------
Universiti Putra Malaysia Signature

Member of the Examination Committee were as follows
Mohd. Saleh Jaafar, Professor Ir. Dr.
(Project Examiner) ------------------------------
Deputy Vice-chancellor Date
Universiti Putra Malaysia -----------------------------
Signature

Farah Nora Aznieta bt Abd Aziz Phd
Senior Lecturer ------------------------------
(Project Examiner) Date
Engineering faculty -----------------------------
Universiti Putra Malaysia Signature

VIII

DECLARATION
I declare that this project is my original work except for the quotations and citations
which have been duly acknowledge. I also declare that it has not been previously,
and is not currently, submitted for any other degree at Universiti Putra Malaysia or at
any other institution.






Ibrahim Ahmed Liban
Date: 17
th
may 2011














IX

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT III
ABSTRACT Error! Bookmark not defined.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VI
APRROVAL SHEET VII
DECLARATION VIII
LIST OF TABLES XI
LIST OF FIGURES XII
LIST OF SYMBOLS XIV
CHAPTERS 1
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. General 1
1.2. Type of Analysis Methods 7
1.2.1. Equivalent Statcis Analysis 7
1.2.2. Respnse Spectrum Analysis 7
1.2.3. Linear and Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis 8
1.3. Problem Statement 9
1.4. Objective 11
1.5. Scope and Limitations 11
1.6. Organisation of The Project 12
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 13
2.1. General Introduction 13
2.2. Supplementary Dampers 14
2.3. Types Sypplementary Dampers 17
2.4. Pounding 19
2.4.1. Adjacent Buildings 20
2.4.2. Retrofitting of Adjacent Buildings 27
2.5. Torsional Response of Asymmetrical Structures 29
2.5.1. Torsional Response Control of aAsymmetrical structures 33
2.5.2. Passive Control Using Viscous Dampers 35
2.5.3. Concluding Remarks 40
3. METHODOLOGY 41
3.1. Introduction 41
3.2. Physical Modelling 43
X

3.2.1. Physical Modelling of Frame Element 43
3.2.2. Physical Modelling of Damper 44
3.3. Mechanical Property of Damper 45
3.4. Dynamic F.E Formulation for RC Frame Structure 46
3.5. Constitutive Relationship for Concrete and Steel 48
3.5.1. Stress-Strain Relationship of Concrete 48
3.5.2. Stress-Strain Relationship for Steel 49
3.6. Reinforce Concrete Frame with Earthquake Energy Dissipartion System 50
3.6.1. Frame Element 51
3.6.2. Viscous Damper Element 52
3.7. Computer Program 53
3.8. Worl Layout Chart 53
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 56
4.1. Introducton 56
4.2. Structures Analysised 57
4.3. Define Damper Properties 57
4.4. Preforme Static Analsis 57
4.5. Select Earthquake Record 58
4.6. Application of Viscous Dampers 59
4.7. Case 1 Pounding Mitigation of Adjacent Structures 59
4.8. Case 2 Torsional Response Reduction of Uni-Asymetrical Structure 64
4.9. Case 3 Torsional Response Reduction of Bi-Asymmetrical Structure 74
5. CONCLUSION 84
5.1. Introduction 84
5.2. Case 1 Pounding Mitigation of Adjacent Structures 84
5.3. Case 2 Torsional Response Reduction of Uni-Asymetrical Structure 84
5.4. Case 3 Torsional Response Reduction of Bi-Asymmetrical Structure 85
5.5. Response of RC Frame Structure Retofitted with Viscous dampers 86
5.6. Suggestions for Futher Studies 87
6. REFERENCES 89



XI

LIST OF TABLES
TABLE: 4.1. Cross-section and reinforcement of structural members 66
TABLE 4.2 displacements and rotations for varying damper coefficients 76
TABLE: 4.3. Displacement reductions in X, Y and Z for node20 83















XII

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1.1. Fault types 7
FIGURE 1.2. Japan after 2011 earthquake 8
FIGURE 1.3. Effects of Haiti earthquake 9
FIGURE 1.4 homes in Eastern Sichuan China earthquake 10
FIGURE 1.5 residences in October 8 Pakistan earthquake 11
FIGURE 2.1 damper types 23
FIGURE 3.1 Overall schematic view of the methodology of the study 48
FIGURE 3.2 Physical model of beam-column element 50
FIGURE 3.3 Real Viscous Dampers and 3-D Nonlinear
Damper Element Model Constitutive 50
FIGURE 3.4 fluid viscous damper 52
FIGURE 3.5 Stress-Strain Relation for Concrete 54
FIGURE 3.6 Stress-Strain curves for steel reinforcement 55
FIGURE 3.7 structural members of frame element 57
FIGURE 3.8 damper frame elements with added damper element 58
FIGURE 3.9 Overall schematic view of present study 60
FIGURE 3.9 Overall schematic view of present study 60
FIGURE 4.1 Overall schematic view of present study 60
FIGURE 3.9 Overall schematic view of present study 60
FIGURE 4.1 layout of analysis procedure 62
FIGURE 4.2 model plot for 2D adjacent RC structures 66
FIGURE 4.3 Overall schematic view of present study 60
FIGURE 4.4 pounding in adjacent structures 67
FIGURE 4.5 lateral displacements for building 1 and 2 68
XIII

FIGURE 4.6 axial and shear force reductions 70
FIGURE 4.7 front view and top view 71
FIGURE 4.8 damper distributions in 3 side frame 71
FIGURE 4.9 nodal displacements in x, y and z directions 73
FIGURE 4.10 time history displacements x in z direction 75
FIGURE 4.11 nodal shear force in x, y and z directions 78
FIGURE 4.12 torsion and moments in x, y and z directions respectively 79
FIGURE 4.13 plan bi-asymmetrical 3 story RC frame structure 80
FIGURE 4.14 rotations in X and Z directions 82
FIGURE 4.15 displacement time history responses for node 20 85
FIGURE 4.16 axial and shear force time history response for element one 87
FIGURE 4.17 torsion and moment time history response of element 1 73











XIV

LIST OF SYMBOLS

end rotation of an elastic member
combined rotation of an elastic member and an end connection
j coefficients of the combined objective function
incremental structural response or building roof drift
s inter-story drift of story s at performance level i
i, I allowable inter-story and roof drifts at performance level i,
respectively
relative magnitude of a combined stress resultant
section factor
inter-story drift ratio or angle
b dual variable vector
Lagrange multiplier or dual variable
exponent for determining a lateral load distribution
reduction factor for a section strength due to the combined stress state
mass density of material
y specified design yield stress
ye expected yield stress
step length of line search
i vibration shape of the ith mode
plastic rotation of a 'pseudo semi-rigid connection




1

CHAPTERS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. GENERAL
Earthquakes are natural disasters brought about by movement of tectonic plates or
rupture of tectonic plates due to pressure build up beneath them. Tectonic plate
movements occur at fault line where the crest is weakest. As rupture occurs at the
faults, strain energy stored is release which travels out words from the point of
origin. It is this strain energy initial stored in the underlying faults which propagates
as waves and is felt on the ground above.
There are three main types of faults, strike-slip fault, normal fault and thrust fault.

FIGURE1.1 Fault types and their behavior during earthquakes:
Thrust faults, particularly those along convergent plate boundaries are associated
with the most powerful earthquakes, including almost all of those of magnitude 8 or
2

more. Strike-slip faults, particularly continental transforms can produce major
earthquakes up to about magnitude 8. Earthquakes associated with normal faults are
generally less than magnitude 7.
Earthquakes are one of the oldest and most destructive forces known to man and his
built environment. Through centurys man has come into contact with earthquakes
coming out with heavy and deadly losses both to his built environment and his own
life. Few examples of such destructive forces in recent times are shown in the
following pictures
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit near the north-eastern coast of Japan on March 11,
2011, which triggered a destructive tsunami killing at least 11600 people while
16450 were pronounced missing and 170500 displaced. 155000 homes, 2035 roads,
56 bridges and 36 railways were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake and
tsunami.

FIGURE1.2 Japan after March 11, 2011 earthquake
3

An earthquake measuring 7.0 magnitude claimed the lives of 222,570 people in Haiti
on Jan. 12, 2010. Worldwide relief efforts were launched to aid the 300,000 injured
and 1.3 million displaced. In terms of property damaged, 97294 houses were
destroyed and 188383 damaged in the Port-au-Prince area and in much of southern
Haiti.

FIGURE1.3 Effects of Haiti Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake
The Great Sichuan Earthquake occurred on May 12, 2008, and measured 8.0
magnitude. The earthquake claimed the lifes of 69195 people and injured 374177
while 18392 were pronounced missing and presumed dead. The earthquake divested
the built environment destroy an estimated 5.36 million buildings and damaging 21
million buildings. The destructive nature of the earth quake affect some 45.5 million
4

people in 10 provinces and regions, causing at least 15 million people to be
evacuated from their homes and more than 5 million being left homeless.

FIGURE1.4 Destroyed homes in Eastern Sichuan China May 12, 2008earthquake
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit near Muzaffarabad, Pakistan on Oct. 8, 2005. The
earthquake was reportedly caused by the rising of a mountain range. The earthquake
killed at least 86000 people killed and injured 69000. The damages were more
extensive in northern Pakistan. The heaviest damage occurred in the Muzaffarabad
area, Kashmir were entire villages were destroyed and at Uri were 80 percent of the
town was destroyed. At least 32335 buildings collapsed in Anantnag, Baramula,
Jammu and Srinagar, Kashmir.
5


FIGURE1.5 Collapse residences in October 8 Pakistan earthquake
The above examples are just few of those on recorded, earthquakes claim lifes, leave
large losses in property damages and destroy the social daily living of communities.
Since then man has been struggling to keep his losses to minimum although there has
not be a complete seismic proof structures but the toll of deaths and properties losses
have been reduced. The last couple of decades have witness mens development in
fields of material science, construction methods and earthquake engineering. All that
knowledge gained from previous earth quakes have made it possible for us humans
to measure and predicts earth quake forces composing them into what we presently
call seismic design codes of practice.
6

Exposures to previous earthquakes has lead us to examine the design concept we use
in our construction methods, questions like importance of structure, saving lifes of
occupants have brought about changes in design criterions for selecting structural
performance during earthquakes. Current seismic design codes are based on either
performance based design method or the capacity based designed method. The
performance based design involves a set of procedures by which a building structure
is designed in a controlled manner such that its behavior is ensured at predefined
performance levels under earthquake loading. The design process is an iterative in
which an initial design is modified repeatedly to meet code- and designer-specified
requirements. While the capacity based designed method is in itself a performance
based method in which the ductility of structural members are predefined to meet
certain code requirements.
Changing structural design criterions and construction methods could only do so
much for structure performance and safety. This opened research gates on how to
enhance the energy dissipation techniques of reinforced concrete structures. Through
this research various methods of energy dissipation systems were developed and
classified into three major groups:
i) Passive energy dissipation systems
ii) Semi-active dissipation systems
iii) Active energy dissipation systems
This field of energy dissipating devices has become another important topic in
structural engineering. During the last three decades, significant efforts have been
made to apply modern control technology to civil structures for enhancing structural
safety against natural hazards. Various types of passive and active control systems
have been developed and experimentally verified. A number of them have been
7

implemented in full scale civil structures. Passive systems are well understood and
widely accepted to reduce the damage and the detrimental effect of this destructive
force on structures.
1.2. TYPE OF ANALYSIS METHODS
1.2.1. EQUILVATENT STATIC ANALYSIS
This approach defines a series of forces acting on a building to represent the effect of
earthquake ground motion, typically defined by a seismic design response spectrum.
It assumes that the building responds in its fundamental mode. For this to be true, the
building must be low-rise and must not twist significantly when the ground moves.
The response is read from a design response spectrum, given the natural frequency of
the building either calculated or defined by the building code.
1.2.2. RESPONSE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS
This approach permits the multiple modes of response of a building to be taken into
account (in the frequency domain). This is required in many building codes for all
except for very simple or very complex structures. The response of a structure can be
defined as combinations of many special shapes in a vibrating string correspond to
the "harmonics". Computer analysis can be used to determine these modes for a
structure. For each mode, a response is read from the design spectrum, based on the
modal frequency and the modal mass, and they are then combined to provide an
estimate of the total response of the structure
The result of a response spectrum analysis using the response spectrum from a
ground motion is typically different from that which would be calculated directly
from a linear dynamic analysis using that ground motion directly, since phase
information is lost in the process of generating the response spectrum.
8


In cases where structures are either too irregular, too tall or of significance to a
community in disaster response, the response spectrum approach is no longer
appropriate, and more complex analysis is often required, such as non-linear static or
dynamic analysis.

1.2.3. LINEAR AND NONLINEAR DYNAMIC ANALYSIS
Static procedures are appropriate when higher mode effects are not significant. This
is generally true for short, regular buildings. Therefore, for tall buildings, buildings
with torsional irregularities, or non-orthogonal systems, a dynamic procedure is
required. In the linear dynamic procedure, the building is modelled as a multi-
degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system with a linear elastic stiffness matrix and an
equivalent viscous damping matrix.

The seismic input is modelled using either modal spectral analysis or time history
analysis but in both cases, the corresponding internal forces and displacements are
determined using linear elastic analysis. The advantage of these linear dynamic
procedures with respect to linear static procedures is that higher modes can be
considered. However, they are based on linear elastic response and hence the
applicability decreases with increasing nonlinear behaviour, which is approximated
by global force reduction factors.

9

In non-linear dynamic analysis, the non-linear properties of the structure are
considered as part of a time domain analysis. This approach is the most rigorous, and
is required by some building codes for buildings of unusual configuration or of
special importance. However, the calculated response can be very sensitive to the
characteristics of the individual ground motion used as seismic input; therefore,
several analyses are required using different ground motion records to achieve a
reliable estimation of the probabilistic distribution of structural response. Since the
properties of the seismic response depend on the intensity, or severity, of the seismic
shaking, a comprehensive assessment calls for numerous nonlinear dynamic analyses
at various levels of intensity to represent different possible earthquake scenarios.

1.3. PROBLEM STATEMENT
When structures are excited by earthquakes they vibrate either in-phase or out of-
phase depending on their dynamic properties. In case two structures of different
dynamic properties vibrate out of phase with each other and the gap between the
structures is not sufficient to accommodate their relative displacements a phenomena
known as pounding occurs. This phenomena has been investigated through a number
of papers for instance Jeng and Tzeng, 2000 showed that pounding leads to both
local and overall structural failure during earthquakes in adjacent buildings. While
other researchers such as Munshi, 1997 investigated the effectiveness of Viscoelastic
dampers on the energy dissipation of RC structures and Chen et al., 2010 carried out
investigations on how viscous damper installed in the outside parameter of RC
structure subjected to 5 different bidirectional earthquakes would reduce the response
of the structure. Another issue associated with structural failure during earth quakes
is lateral-torsional couple of asymmetrical structures. Asymmetrical structures are
10

structures that have eccentricities in mass, stiffness or damping centers; during
earthquakes these structures experience different ductility demands on different load
resisting members. this effect is classified as lateral-torsional couple and has been
investigated in a number of papers Goel, 1998.

The response of structures to earth quake excitation is a complex problem, with a lot
of variables that have to be considered during modeling and analysiss phase.
However during the view of literature, most of the literature reviewed on both
adjacent and asymmetrical structures used simplified models which could not give
the actual response of multi-story structures under seismic excitations. Secondly
researchers use 2D frame elements excited in a single direction while actual
buildings are 3D and are excited by three component earthquakes hence again the
true response of actual structures cannot be truly represented.

Another issue that is not addressed well is the inelastic behavior of structures during
earthquakes, along with this is that most of the papers view considered elastic range
for supplementary dampers too. Those that did consider material nonlinearity did not
show any plastic formations within the structures and dampers.
Coming to the area of pounding although it is covered in a great extend, it is more on
equal height build pounding which is at floor level pounding. The more severe
problem which is mid column pounding is not covered. Furthermore soil structure
interaction is not considered in any of the papers viewed.
In case of asymmetrical structures, plan asymmetry is not covered. Most papers on
this topic consider eccentricity in mass, stiffness and damper distributions, hardly
11

addressing discontinuity of structural members or floors as is the case in most
modern structures. Again material and damper nonlinearity are not discussed in
detail.

1.4. OBJECTIVES
Although there is a great deal of work to be done in determining the behavior of
actual RC structures excited by earthquakes, this work here address the following
parameters
i) Effect of pounding on adjacent structures
ii) Effect of lateral-torsional couple on asymmetrical structures
iii) How implementing viscous dampers in structures would reduce their
responses and in the process reducing pounding and lateral-torsional
effect.

1.5. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
From the title of the project, the scope of this project is confined to the pounding and
lateral-torsional coupling reduction in RC frame structures using viscous dampers.
Response reduction in RC frame structures is a very wide subject. As with all
studies, there is the problem of finding good and relevant information. The
information in this project is restricted whatever relevant information that was found
to relate to the subject matter.

12

1.6. ORANISATION OF THE PROJECT
This project consists of 5 chapters namely General Introduction; Literature Review,
Methodology; Results and Discussion; Conclusion and Recommendation. The first
chapter which is the introduction gives a picture of what the rest of the chapters
consists of. Chapter 2 which is the literature review gathers all information about
what a pounding and lateral torsional coupling reduction in RC frame structures, as
well as its challenges and prospects. Chapter 3 is the project methodology. All
information about the way I intend to carry out my project is in there. For example,
the type of materials used, modelling of structural and analysis are covered there.
Chapter 4 is closely linked to chapter 3. The result of the project after it has been
conducted as specified is found here. Finally, chapter 5 summarizes the project as a
whole and gives future investigation along with recommendations.












13

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Recently, several sizeable earthquakes have caused severe damage in civil structures
all over the world, including Japan (2011), Haiti (2010), Pakistan (2008), Eastern
Sichuan China (2008) and Bhuj, India (2001). To protect civil structures from
significant damage, the response reduction of civil structures under such severe
earthquakes v has become an important topic in structural engineering. During the
last three decades, significant efforts have been made to apply modern control
technology to civil structures for enhancing structural safety against natural hazards.
Various types of passive and active control systems have been developed and
experimentally verified. A number of them have been implemented in full scale civil
/structures. Passive systems are well understood and widely accepted. One passive
system that is of great interest is viscous damper.

Viscous dampers are made up of highly viscous fluid in a cylindrical container with
end piston which compresses the viscous fluid in order to dissipate the imposed
forced on the structure through earthquake excitation. Viscous dampers are capable
of reducing both the displacement and the forces generated by earthquakes. These
dampers are installed in structures through bracing systems and can also be installed
in the outside parameters of structures as diagonal system.
This work examines the affect that installing dampers in RC frame structures would
have on their responses in terms of pounding mitigation in adjacent structures and
lateral-torsional response reduction in asymmetrical structures. In the pounding
mitigation, dampers are place in two adjacent RC frame structures of different
14

heights. The seismic gap between the structures was found to be insufficient to
accommodate the relative displacements of the structures thus resulted in pounding,
where the roof of the shorter structure collided with the corresponding floor of the
taller building. Introducing viscous dampers did reduce the amount of displacement
in both structures thereby avoiding contact between the structures.

Also in this work viscous dampers were used to reduce the lateral-torsional response
of two asymmetrical structures. The first asymmetrical structure and different
distribution of stiffness, with one side of building have stiffer frames while the other
three sides had the same stiffness. For the second model a bi-eccentric system
subjected to 3 component earthquake was examined. In both case the use of viscous
dampers did result in reduction of the torsional force developed within the structure

2.2. SUPPLEMENTERY DAMPERS
Reinforced concrete structures during earthquakes are excited by inertia forces which
impart energy again to the structure. This energy has to be dissipated by the structure
through displacement, floor accelerations and rotations which in most cases results in
structural collapse or damage. For this reason the structures are design with certain
amount of ductility in order to limit the damages (local plastic hinges occur at some
locations).

Other then the formation of localized plastic hinge formations there are no ways for
the energy to be dissipated, until the development of supplemental dampers came
into the picture. These supplementary dampers allow for large energy dissipations
15

while limiting the role of the structure in dissipation the energy. There has been a
vast amount of research around the topic area and still continues to be under the spot
light of many earthquake and structural engineers. The reasons for the ongoing
research is to come up with a structure that is both safe and economical, before the
development of supplemental dampers structures had to have a certain stiffness (
additional sections) in order to reduce structural drift, although this worked but it
made the construction really expansive and hence the development of these non
structural mechanical systems. Secondly because of the ductility demand there was a
placement of how stiff the structure could be made, this was also seen as a secondary
reason as to why supplemental dampers would incorporated into the structure would
be a valuable alternative.

Munshi, 1997 investigated the effect of Viscoelastic dampers on the energy
dissipation of RC structures. The structure was modeled as fiber beam-column
element with structural hinges modeled as fiber hinges of pullout type. While using
a two node finite element damper model generated with the aid of step by step
integration scheme proposed by Koh and Kelly, he investigate how stiffness
degradation, strength degradation and pinching characteristic of reinforced concrete
hinges would be affected by introducing Viscoelastic dampers as energy dissipaters.
Munshi found that the Viscoelastic dampers did reduce the energy dissipation
requirement on the RC structure, and that the damping ratio of the damper depended
on the period of the structure as well as its ductility demand. Tezcan and Uluca, 2003
using SAP2000n the authors investigated how the Viscoelastic supplemental
dampers would alter the seismic response of RC frame structures and found that an
increase in damper ratios resulted in decrease seismic response of the structures,
16

however this was not true for the case when the structures when subjected to low
frequency earthquakes, this being due to the time period of ground motion and that of
the structure being in phase.

Another energy dissipative technique that has been around for a while is the use of
Tune mass dampers (TMD). An investigation of this type dampers by Pinkaew et al.,
2003 revealed that TMD are effective in reducing the amount of damage the
structures under goes during seismic excitation. Although the investigation uses the
damage index to find the effectiveness of the tune mass dampers rather than peak
structure displacements, it shows that TMD are effective in reducing the structures
damage depending on the characteristics of ground excitation.

Chen et al., 2010 using perform-3D the researchers carried out investigations on 46
viscous dampers installed in the outside parameter of RC structure in the form of K-
bracing. They investigated how these dampers would reduce the structural response
when subjected to 5 different earth quakes with two components considered (X and
Y). In their work the researches carried out comparative studies on different method
of analysis such as static nonlinear, dynamic nonlinear analysis, elastic and inelastic:
their target was to determine the short comings of each analysis procedure analysis.
For instance in the static analysis they considered the push over analysis with three
different loading shape distributions namely a triangular load, uniformly distributed

17

load and model load. They found that the modal load and inverse triangular load did
give almost similar results while that of the uniformly distributed load was always
smaller. Another important agenda in their work was the use of fiber model used to
model the energy dissipation of dampers rather than the plastic hinge formation
mechanism which would not incorporate the damping provided by the supplemental
dampers until plastic hinge formation occurs, wheres the fiber model employs
damping provided by supplementary damping through crack, yielding and failure.
What they finding showed was that for the three different earthquake levels
(frequent, medium and rare) structures without damper did not meet any of the code
specifications while with dampers the plastic deformation of the structures was
reduced. Hence the viscous dampers installed in the structure did reduce the energy
dissipation demand on the structure there by reducing the structures response under
earthquake excitations.

2.3. TYPES OF SUPPLEMENTARY DAMPERS

18

TYPES OF DAMPERS IMAGE
MASS TUNE DAMPER
Used to counteract the displacing force by isolating in the opposite direction to
the force causing the movement.

BALL BEARING TYPE DAMPER
This type of dampers isolate the structure from base movements, reduce shear
force but do not reduce the lateral displacement of structure

VISCOUS DAMPERS
Viscous dampers are velocity dependent and reduce both base shear force and
inter-story drifts

Figure 2.1 damper types
19

There are a number of ways of retrofitting structures each with its own controlling
parameters Zhu et al., 2001,Lu et al., 2002. The retrofitting technique that is going to
be cover here in this thesis is the use of viscous dampers for retrofitting to increase
the energy dissipation of old and new structures under seismic excitation. Viscous
dampers are velocity dependent and do not require an external power source since
there are passive dampers. Another important factor is that the forced generated by
the dampers is out of phase with force due to seismic excitation and hence no
resonance occurs. Thirdly the force generated by the dampers does not lead to
localized force build up with in the structure.
2.4. POUNDING
Due to lack of land and its heavy price tag most of the high-rise buildings in
metropolitan cities around the world are built rather close to each other. Now in
times of earth quakes these structures oscillate and if the gap between them is not
sufficient enough to accommodate their displacements the structures collide. This
collision of structures in structure engineering is referred to as pounding. Pounding in
these structures is primarily associated with the fact that these structures do not have
the same dynamic properties such as stiffness, mass, damping and time period of
oscillation, there in resulting oscillation that are out of phase. The effect of pounding
on structures has been noted by several researches to be one of the leading factors
associated with structural collapse (V.Jeng and W.L.Tzeng), (Rosenblatt and Meli)
reported that in the Mexico city earth quake of 1985 that out of 330 collapsed
buildings 40% of this were due to pounding effect. Depending on the layout of the
adjacent structures pounding could occur at the floor levels if both adjacent buildings
are of equal height or at mid column height if there is a difference with the floor
heights. (V.Jeng and W.L.Tzeng) gave different forms of pounding namely, mid
20

column pounding, heavier adjacent building pounding, taller adjacent building
pounding, eccentric pounding and end building pounding. There are various dynamic
parameters that affect the pounding response of the buildings. For instance difference
in stiffness, damping and mass properties in the buildings would lead to an out-of-
phase oscillation. Another such important factor to consider is the seismic gap
between the two structures, it is not always possible that adjacent or parallel
buildings will have enough gap to accommodate the lateral displacements of both
structures and at times large gap between the two buildings could involve greater
pounding force due to great accelerations and story drifts that are associated with
structural oscillations (Salam 11
th
ICSGE Page22-9).

2.4.1. ADJACENT BUILDINGS
Due to lack of available building land most high rise buildings in metropolitan cities
are built without an adequate seismic separation between them, which in turns leads
to pounding effect during medium- high earth quakes. Pounding between adjacent
structures has been noted my several researches to be one of the major factors
leading to structural collapse and serve damages to both structural and non structural
units in buildings Scholl, 1989 and Kasai and Maison, 1997.
Hong et al., 2003 developed a procedure for determining the gap required to prevent
pounding of two nonlinear SDOF systems using structural reliability methods and
random vibration theory. In their work they modeled the excitation as a white noise
excitation and used the peak response from two sided crossing problem. They then
compared their numerical results with the complete quadratic combination rule and
found that the ratio of the former to the later varied between 0.8 and 1.1. Due to the
21

fact the crossing rate for seismic design of individual structure subjected to seismic
excitation is greater than that used for the evaluation of seismic gab, using the
structural response obtained from a two sided crossing problem is always
conservative. They found that the ratio of seismic gap calculated from a one sided
crossing problem to that of two side crossing problem was between 0.85 and 0.95.
Lin, 1997 gave a theoretical solution for determining the seismic gap required to
prevent pounding of adjacent structures subjected to a non stationary Gaussian
random process. The theoretical solution was based on random vibration and the
structural system considered was a linear multi degree of freedom system depicted as
a lumped mass system. He gave the following expression to compute mean and the
standard deviation of the separation distance of adjacent buildings to avoid
pounding:

And the standard deviation as:

Where

, T is a time duration, is Eulers constant,

equal to 0.5772 and

He found that for structures whose period of vibration is the same or nearly equal
the required separation distance would be small since they would vibrate in phase but
for those with large difference in their period of vibration large seismic gap was
required. Secondly structures that had a long fundamental vibration period would
22

also in turn require larger seismic gap. Another parameter that has to be considered
in future work is that variation in the seismic excitation as it travels from the base of
one structure to the next. Secondly the soil-structure interaction has to be taken into
account.
Lin and Weng, 2001 studied the effect of height and period of vibration on the
pounding probability of adjacent structures subjected to artificial earths generated by
multiplying the response spectra of dense soil and soft rock with a trapezoidal
intensity function. They found that the correlations used in the UBC-97 (ABS and
SRSS) overestimated the separation distance require for no pounding. They proposed
a separation distance for a steel moment resisting framed modeled as a shear type
structure with elastoplastic behavior, the proposed method was base on seismic
hazard analysis for a given peak ground acceleration and conditional pounding
probability. They found that the minimum separation provided by the code varied
with the combination method used, period ratio of adjacent builds and the individual
periods of the structure they also concluded in their work that structures that have
periods of vibration close to that of the soil have greater pounding probability so do
structures of the same height with well separated periods of vibration.
Lopez-Garcia and Soong, 2009 preformed a comparative study on four criterions for
seismic separations between adjacent nonlinear hysteretic structures. All four
criterions were base on the double difference combinations rule but differed in the
method of correlating the displacements responses of the adjacent structural systems.
The separation distance proposed by the double difference method is as given below:

23

where S is the separation distance and

are the displacement response of the

adjacent structures ``A'' and ``B'', respectively,

where

and

are the natural periods and damping ratios, respectively. of

the adjacent structures ``A'' and ``B''.
The four criterions under investigation were the Filiatrault criterion, Kasai criterion,
Penzien criterion and Valles criterion. Filiatrault criterion uses the correlation
between stationary displacement response processes of nonlinear hysteretic SDOF
systems given in eq(4) with the assumption that the correlation of actual nonlinear
hysteretic system characterized by T
A,

A,
R
A,

A
and T
B,

B,
R
B,

B
is the same as
that of linear system characterized by T
A,

A
and T
B,

B,
.
For the Kasai criterion assumes that the correlation given by eq (4) holds true for a
nonlinear hysteretic system as long as the correlation between the structural
responses of a nonlinear system can be approximated by a linear system whose
parameters were effective parameters. He gave the following expressions for the
effective parameters:

Where is the displacement ductility of the structures and

are the effective

time and damping coefficients.
Whereas the Penzien criterion used the same expression but introduces the effective
parameters as given below:
24

Valles calculated the values of empirically through a set of equations.
The errors with all above criterions relates to the fact that they all used the
correlation between a linear systems to depict the correlation between structural
responses of nonlinear hysteretic structures.
Jankowski, 2008 carried out a parametric study on to two equal height 3 dimensional
structures subjected to 3 component El-contra earthquake. The structures were
modeled as inelastic multi-degree-of-freedom lumped mass systems and a non linear
Viscoelastic modeled was used to depict the pounding force during contact of the
two adjacent buildings. Jankowski study how the variation in mass, stiffness, gap and
yield strength would affect the structures response, he found that for the lighter more
flexible building structural pounding during earthquakes had a significant
influence on the structures response and even more so in the longitudinal direction
as compared to the transverse and vertical directions. Structural pounding forced in
the lighter more flexible structure lead to it having preeminent deformations as it
enter into the yielding zone, however the heavier more stiffer structure did not
experience the same behaviour patterns as in the lighter building.
Pantelides and Ma, 1998 carried out a parametric study on effect of pounding on the
response of elastic and inelastic structural response of a single degree of freedom
25

system subjected to earthquake. He modeled the pounding force as a Hertz nonlinear
spring in an impact oscillator subjected to harmonic excitation. The equation of
motion was then written as:

Where m is the mass of the structure, c is the coefficient of damping and k is the
structural stiffness. Here the pounding force is give as

which is expressed as
follows:

Where (a) is the separation distance between adjacent structures and R is the impact
stiffness parameter which depends on the material of the two structures that come
together as well as the surface geometry. The parametric studies considered in their
work were the frequency of the excitation, separation gap, period of structural
vibration and the damping ratio. They found that under the same excitation,
structures with different natural periods of vibration would experience different
magnitudes of pounding. Secondly as they compared the structural response of the
elastic and inelastic case they found that although the overall structural displacement
was larger for the inelastic case the acceleration, velocity and the magnitude of
pounding were lower for the inelastic case. Thirdly the pounding occurrence was
lower for the inelastic case than the elastic case.
Agarwal et al., 2007 investigated how introducing friction bearing base isolation
(Teflon base isolation system) would affect the pounding of adjacent structures
subjected to four different earthquakes. The work showed that although base
isolation might eliminated the chance of base pounding the upper story pounding of
26

structures might still occur depending on structural parameters such as, stiffness,
mass, natural period of vibration and type of seismic excitation consider. They
studied 3 different scenarios, when one of the structures was base isolated, both
structures were based isolated and when both were fixed based structures. For the
case in which one of the two adjacent buildings had a base isolation the overall
deflection of the structure decrease but there was still large lateral displacement and
in case where the gap between the two buildings was equal to the overall structural
drift increase in pounding occurrence increased. While for the case of both structures
being base isolated, the magnitude of the impact force was noted to dependent on
whether the sliding friction coefficient was considered constant or varied with the
velocity. In the latter case the pounding forced was reduced while in the early case
impact force was higher. However for both structures base isolated that are chances
that the structures would move in phase keep the same distance between them.
Komodromos, 2008 carried out parametric investigation on seismic base isolated RC
structure. he model the super structure of the RC build as a shear beam with lumped
mass at the story level while the isolation system considered was modeled as a linear
model with effective damping and stiffness. As for pounding a nonlinear Hertz an
impact model was used by the researcher. The following parameters and their
influence on the pounding effect were studied with the aid of a soft ware generated
by the researcher.
1. Effect of the flexibility of the isolation system
2. Effect of the impact stiffness and damping
3. Effect of the superstructures stiffness
27

The following conclusions were arrived at, the more flexible the isolation system the
greater chances of pounding with the force case being if the fundamental period of
vibration concedes with that of the excitation. An increase in impact stiffness is
associated with decrease in relative displacement at the isolation level while the
maximum floor accelerations and inertia forces increase substantially with the
pounding force, it was also noted that an increase in impact stiffness resulted in an
increase in natural frequency which tends to amplify the seismic loading on the
structure. Lastly it was found that an increase in superstructure flexibility resulted in
an increase in the inter-story deflections.
What the research did not mention in his work is how the above parameters would
affect the structure response when pounding locations varied, for instance if
pounding at the isolation level is prevented this would not mean that the
superstructure would not pounding against fix based neighboring buildings, secondly
researcher does not consider the affect of multi component seismic excitation thirdly
he depicts the structural units to be linear are then considering them nonlinear in
which case u could get better sequence of formations.
2.4.2. RETORFITTING OF ADJACENT BUILDINGS
Lu et al., 2002 the team carried out experimental study on a 5 story and 6 story steel
frames subjected to El centre 1945 earthquake to determine how the installation of
fluid dampers would affect the structural response of the building. They took three
different cases, 1
st
case was two parallel structures with no connections while the 2
nd

case was done for the structures linked with rigid rods and the final case was that of
the structures linked with fluid dampers. In their study they found that fluid dampers
gave the best results in that they did not alter the fundamental periods of the
28

structures but reduced the structural responses of the building more than the rigid
connections.
Benavent-Climent, 2006 preformed experimental (shake table) study on four 6 story-
3 bay reinforcement concrete moment resisting frames with wide beam-column
connection. Of the four samples made two of them were retrofitted with diagonally
braced new dampers developed by Benavent, this diagonal braced dampers consisted
of H-shaped members designed to remain elastic when the brace is axially loaded,
the dampers were design to increase the structural stiffnes by ten fold and reduce the
interstory drift below 0.7%. He then compared the structural responses of an extrior
and interior beam-column retrofitted with braced viscous dampers against their
counter parts with out retrofitting. He conclude that the following findings in his
work:
(i) For same PGA the dampers reduced the interstory drift by 70% and 85% in
the exterior connections, and 60% and 85% in the interior,with the reduction
increasing with increase in peak ground accelerations.
(ii) Dampers increase the UDEC (ultimate energy disipation capacity) for the
exterior and interior wide beam column connections by 12 and 4 holds
respectivly while the maximum lateral force increased by 4 and 2 respectivly.
(iii)Braced dampers reduced the damage to the RC structure by 75%.
(iv) The braced dampers prevent drastic damages to beam column connections
untill one of the dampers yielded.
Zhu et al., 2001 investigated the optimum response reduction of a primary structure
connected to an auxiliary structure through an interconnecting element. Their work
covers two different areas, the first area being how the configuration of the structures
29

would affect the response of the primary structure. Secondly team than studied how
different control techniques (passive, active and semi-active) would affect the
response reduction of interconnect parallel single degree of freedom systems
subjected to the NS component of the EL centre 1940 earthquake. In terms of
structural configuration they conclude effectiveness increases as the mass of the A-
structure increases, and the natural frequency of the A-structure is further from that
of the P-structure. and that a flexible auxiliary structure reduced the absolute
acceleration of primary structure (P-structure) while a rigid auxiliary structure
reduces the relative displacement of P-structure. The team future studied the
effectiveness of passive control, active control and semi active control methods,
finding that the semi-active control technique was more effective in response control
of the structure then the optimum passive control method.
2.5. TORSIONAL RESPONSE OF ASYMMETRICAL STRUCTURES
Through the work of varies researches and case studies conducted on structures
subjected to earthquakes, it was found that symmetrical structures had far lesser
damage then asymmetrical structures of the same strength or even higher. The reason
being that in asymmetrical structure coupling occurs between the lateral response of
the structures and their rotation about the centre of resistance. The torsional aspect of
the response is generated through the eccentricity in the structure resulting from
discontinuity in structural members, differences in stiffness of members and
distribution of mass. As the centre of mass, stiffness and resistance shift further apart
the structure would rotate in the direction of the weak section there by creating a
larger deformation in one section of the building as compared to the other and
ultimately may result in failure of that portion.
30

Thambiratnam and Corderoy, 1994 carried out simple microcomputer procedure
using two different analysis techniques, quasistatic and real time dynamic analysis to
determine the effect of degree of asymmetry and direction of twist on the torsional
response of building. The degree of asymmetry in the building was varied through
the positioning of core walls. The analysis were done on a three dimensional 10 story
rectangular and 15 story L shaped building both with a core wall of stiffness 12
times large then that of all columns combined. Both analysis methods did show that
as the core moves away from the centre of resistance the degree of asymmetry
increase does resulting in large torsional response of the structure, for the quasistatic
method a triangular load applied in y direction was used for modeling the earth
quake. Both the static and dynamic analyses give results which agree qualitatively
and to some extent quantitatively and indicate that the responses are greatly
influenced by the degree of asymmetry in the building.
K. G. Stathopoulosi and S. A. Anagnostopoulos 2004 investigated the inelastic
response (torsional) of asymmetrical structures excited by 10 different artificial earth
quakes generated to match the design spectra. They compared the response of 3 and
5 story RC structures to a simplified shear type structure under bi-axial earth quake
excitations. Their primary objective was to show that the responses for simplified
shear type structures used in code provisions do not give a true picture of actual
response of multi-story real RC structures. The beam and column members of the
two RC models were modelled as nonlinear using plastic hinge model. Asymmetry in
both structures was introduced through dimensioning of the frame members taking
into account the mass eccentricities and thus stiffness eccentricities were also
generated. The top story displacements and rotational ductility demands for the
multi-storey structures show that the flexible side frames severed more
31

displacements and ductility demands then the stiffer side frames, this demands were
more server for the beams on the flexible side than the columns due to the fact that
capacity design limits the column stiffness to be always in the elastic range.
Thambiratnam and Corderoy, 1994 studied the effect of varying asymmetry on the
structural response and found that variation in asymmetry affected the shear force,
bending moment and deflection response of the structure. While Mansoori and
Moghadam, 2009 worked on the optimal distribution of dampers so as to control the
degree of asymmetry in the structure, thereby reducing the lateral-torsional response
of the structure.
V.I. Fernandez-Davila1 and E.F. Cruz 2008 preformed Time history response
analysis on 5 story asymmetrical RC frame structures subjected to uni- and bi-
directional earthquake excitations. The models considered took into account
nonlinear behaviour of the structure members with failure occurring at member ends.
Using strong column-weak beam design two different cases where consider a
symmetrical model and an asymmetrical model subject to 20 artificial earthquakes
loads. The aim of the paper was to propose a set of combination rules that could
effectively estimate the response of asymmetrical structures using response spectra
analysis of uni-directional earthquake loading applied in x and y direction separately.
For Time history response analysis a bi-directional earthquake loading was applied
on the 3D asymmetric model and the response of the structure monitored for varying
angle of earthquake incidence and reduction factor. Using SRSS and 100/ ( =40,
60) combination rules, the results of response spectra analysis using unidirectional
earthquake loading applied on the structure gave results that were comparable to
those obtained through time history response analysis which used a bidirectional
earthquake loading.
32

Erduran, 2008 investigated the capability of current nonlinear static analysis in
capturing the effect of torsional response in asymmetric structures. In his work the
author compared the estimate results of N2 and MPA (modal pushover analysis) with
the exact values obtained from response history analysis for two RC frame
structures, one with unidirectional eccentricity introduce through shifting of mass
centre through 1.5m and the other with a bidirectional eccentricity due to plan
asymmetry (moving the mass centre .5m in both horizontal directions).Both
structures were subjected to a set of 30 earthquakes, of which 15 were near fault
earthquakes while the other far fault earthquakes. He also considered two different
versions of first pushover mode for the nonlinear static analysis methods, the tow
methods differed only in point of loading application. On comparing the results of
NS and MPA with response history analysis, the author concludes that with the
following points
(i) The first mode pushover procedure, where the lateral forces are applied at
the mass centre significantly underestimates the torsional rotations resulting
in an underestimation of the displacement demands on the torsional flexible
side for both uni-directionally eccentric and bi- directionally eccentric
systems. For the uni-directionally eccentric system, the underestimation of
torsional rotations results in conservative displacement demand estimates for
the torsional stiff side."
(ii) When the point of load application is change to the shifted mass centre the
first mode push over analysis method gave torsional response estimates. This
being the modified first mode push over analysis employed in current codes
under section of accidental eccentricity design.
33

(iii)The N2 which incorporates response spectra analysis method in estimate
torsional response of asymmetrical structure did give good results that were
comparable with exact values generated through response history analysis.
However this was true for the flexible side but for the stiffer side the result
was more conservative due to the assumption in N2, which assumes that the
displacement of stiffer side is the same as that at centre of mass.
Modal pushover analysis method gives more conservative results for 50% in 50 years
and 10% IN 50 years hazard levels, but a comparable result for 2% in 50 years
hazard level.
2.5.1. TORSIONAL CONTROLE OF ASYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE
Yoshida and Dyke, 2005 investigated the response control capacity of shear mode
MR damper placed in two numerical full scale asymmetrical structures. In first case
of study the structure had a rectangular plan with asymmetry being due to the
location of a shear wall in the 9 story building. While the second case considered 8
story l shaped structure. The mechanical model of the MR damper was that of Bouc-
Wen model force produced in the damper being controlled through variation in
applied voltage to produce the equivalent damping force within the system:

And

And the The functional dependence of the device parameters on the command input
u is modelled as

34

And

In their work they consider three different control systems namely passive-on,
clipped-optimal control, and ideal active control to evaluate performance of the MR
damper. They found that the clipped-optimal control method gave better results than
passive-on while ideal active control method gave pretty much the same results.
Acceleration and inter-story drift reductions for the clipped-optimal control method
where more pronounced from smaller earth quakes.
Shook et al., 2009 carried out experimental and numerical investigation on the affect
of semi-active (magneto rheological) dampers in reducing the torsional response of a
3 story, 9m high asymmetrical structure. The resistance of the MR damper was
controlled by fuzz logic algorithm generated through controlled-elitist genetic
algorithm (GA). Results of numerical evaluation of the FLC showed favorable
performance with respect to 1
st
, 3
rd
and 4
th
mode of vibrations 4 while the
performance was less favorable with respect to 2
nd
mode of vibration. It was
observed that the FLC is effective in decoupling lateral and torsional responses of the
structure.
Garca et al., 2007 investigated the torsional response control of asymmetrical
structures using viscous-elastic dampers and found that visco-elastic dampers were
capable of reducing the torsional response of asymmetrical structure by shifting the
empirical centre of build to coincide with the geometric centre of the building.
Optimal damper eccentricity values tended to increase linearly as the stiffness or
mass eccentricities increased, but their values depended on the input and system
parameters such as the torsional-to lateral stiffness ratio, uncoupled period,
35

eccentricity of the base structure, and stiffness and damping characteristics of the VE
dampers.
2.5.2. PASSIVE CONTROL USING VISCOUS DAMPERS
Through various researches on structures under earthquake excitations revealed that
structures which are asymmetrical suffer more damage as compared to those which
are symmetrical in nature. The asymmetry in the structures could be due to
eccentricities in mass, stiffness, strength or even damping properties. In certain case
it is the distribution of resisting frames within the structures which are also
responsible, for instance structures with soft stories were found to undergo lateral-
torsional couple when subjected to seismic loads, since continuity in structural
members cause alterations in the load path these structures have been classified as
asymmetrical structures.
Goel, 1998 is one of those leading researchers who have studied various aspects of
earthquake loading affects on asymmetrical structures, and in this paper the resercher
examines how using supplemental damping systems could alter the structural
response under seismic excitation. In this work the researcher examines the affect of
centre of mass, centre of rigidity, and centre of the geometry on the structural
response under lateral-torsional coupling. The model considered was idealized single
story structure incorporated with fluid viscous dampers. The author concluded with
the following findings:
i) Asymmetrical distribution of dampers lead to reduction of edge deformations
of up to 2 time that of symmetrical distribution
ii) The largest reduction in edge deformations in the flexible side was noted for
when the CSD (centre of stiffness of damping) was as far away as possible
36

from CM (centre of mass), while for the reduction of edge deformations in
stiffer side the CSD was on the same side as CR.
iii) Also largest reductions in edge deformation on the flexible side were noted
for when supplemental dampers were distributed as far away as possible from
the CSD.
iv) Since the normalized supplemental damping eccentricity and supplemental
damping radius of gyration cannot take up simultaneously largest possible
values an optimal reduction can be obtain through using fewer dampers
placed at the outer most edges or my place dampers in the perpendicular
direction.
v) The effects of supplemental damping on edge deformations were more
pronounced for strongly coupled torsional flexible asymmetrical plan
systems.
Goel, 2000 using modal analysis techniques the author investigated the effect of plan
wise distribution of viscous dampers on the apparent modal periods, apparent
damping ratios, mode shape components, modal participation factors and dynamic
amplification factors of asymmetric-plan buildings with supplemental viscous
damping subjected to harmonic ground motion. He found that the plan wise
distribution of dampers affect the dynamic amplification factor more than any other
factor.
Goel and Booker, 2001 investigated the effects of supplemental viscous damping on
the seismic response of one-storey, asymmetric-plan systems responding in the
inelastic range of behavior. Through this investigation the authors found that the
deformation, ductility and hysteresis demand on the flexible side lateral load
resisting members could be reduce through the implementation of viscous dampers in
37

asymmetrical structure. The amount of reduction depending on the plan wise
distribution of these supplemental dampers, for instance when the dampers had an
eccentricity equal but opposite in direction to that of structural eccentricity maximum
reduction in deformation and ductility demands of the flexible load resisting frame
was registered.
Goel, 2005 the author investigated the effect of viscous damper nonlinearity on the
response of one story uni-eccentric linear and non linear asymmetrical structure.
Following points are the conclusions derived by the author
(i) Damper non-linearity leads to reductions 25% in the flexible edge
deformations of short-period systems while for longer period systems the
reduction is 10%.
(ii) Effect of damper nonlinearity was found to have a small variation for base
shear and torque of linear and non linear systems. However the dampers did
reduce the torque effect considerable while the base shear was only slightly
effect.
(iii)For both linear and nonlinear systems, nonlinearity in the damper did reduce
the damping force and increase the damping torque.
(iv) Reduction in damper force was only for system with periods longer then
0.2sec
(v) The effect of plan distribution of dampers is not influenced by damper non
linearity
(vi) Combination of system nonlinearity and damper nonlinearity might be used
to remove the adverse effects.
The objective of this current work was to study how using energy dissipating devices
in old and new structures would alter their dynamic behavior under seismic
38

excitation. We have all witness the devastations cause by earthquakes in one way or
the other. Recent earth quakes in this modern time of material development and
construction advancement have resulted in loss of lifes tolling hundreds of
thousands and property damage in the billions. Although other factors associated
with earthquakes are also reasonable responsible for the deaths and property
damages, but still this are a second nature out breaks.
Structures under seismic excitation are subjected to a sudden again in energy which
has to be dissipated through inter floor accelerations and displacements. This in turn
causes the structure or parts of the structural units to collapse as they were not design
for such extreme displacements. Although the ductile of the structure does help in
dissipating some portion of the energy absorbed through plastic hinge mechanism.
These plastic hinge formation to an extend are acceptable but when the number of
plastic hinge formations exceed the design limit, the structures gives way and
collapse. There have been various ways that have been investigated in order to
compensate for the large displacement in structures, for example shear walls base
isolation techniques.
Here the method under study is the use of viscous dampers in retrofitting old
structures and new designed structures. The viscous dampers considered in this study
are velocity dependent. The advantages of this type of dampers is that they have
forces that are out of phase with the exciting force and no localized forces are
generated were they are installed secondly since these are passive dampers there is
no requirement of an external power source to control the system.
The use of viscous dampers provides the structure with an alternative route to
dissipate the absorbed energy, hence reducing the amount of plastic hinge formations
within the structural units. There are various dynamic properties that are responsible
39

for the behavior of structures under seismic excitation, due to the vast nature of the
topic few parameters will be covered in this work. The parameters are first categories
according to different areas or factors that arise from structural excitation:
For adjacent buildings one of the most server problems is pounding which results
from lack of proper clearance or seismic gap between the two buildings. Seismic gap
is the distance between the two buildings required to accommodate the displacements
of the two structures, this phenomenon is very apparent in metropolitan cities where
tall structures are constructed with little or no seismic gap. This problem is very
apparent where you have new buildings built close to old existing structures, because
of the difference in their dynamic properties the structures vibrate out of phase
resulting in pounding. Depending on whether the structures are of equal heights or
not the location of pounding will vary so will its severity. For instance structures of
equal height experience floor level pounding which is less severe the mid column
pounding.
In this work the employment of dampers is primarily used to reduce the dynamic
response of structures, such as displacement and shear force but this would in turn
reduce the chance of pounding since the displacements of the structures is reduced.
The second agenda in this work is that of asymmetrical structures under seismic
excitation. Asymmetrical structures are structures that have eccentricity in mass,
stiffness or damper locations due to irregular construction or discontinuity in
structural members. Due to eccentricity of stiffness and mass the structure undergoes
uneven lateral deformation. Due to the uneven lateral deformation demand of the
resisting structures there is a couple of lateral and torsional response of the structure.
For this it was suggested using viscous dampers to compensate for the difference in
stiffness in order to reduce the torsional response of the structure.
40

The key difference between this work and the vast amount of research on the topic is
that:
i) Structure is subjected to 3 dimensional earth quake
ii) Plastic hinge formation in damper and structure members are studied for
iii) 3D, multi- story structures are considered with nonlinear structural elements
and dampers.
2.5.3. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Through the literature reviewed and remarks of researchers the following points were
seen as points that require further research
i) Soil structure interaction
ii) Lateral-torsion coupling pounding
iii) Mid column pounding in soft story structures
iv) Use of more detail and as close as possible to actual structural models








41

3. METHODOLOGY
3.1. INTRODUCTION
Although it is not practical or even possible to have structures that are 100% seismic
resistant structures but these structures can be designed to have ductility response
during earthquakes. The ductility of structures is important in the sense that failure is
not sudden and explosive but rather undergoes large deflections which are indicative
of near structural failure. This is the criterion in which most currently seismic
building codes are based on and structures that follow these codes come out with
better performance under seismic excitations compared to the earlier counterparts.
The study of structures under Seismic excitation has come a long way in the last
couple of decade. Developments in technology made it permissible to measure the
intensity, depth and direction of earthquakes. These technological developments and
vast amount of research on the topic have presented new era in the ways structures
can dissipate energy resulting for seismic excitations.
Due to the vast nature of the topic there are two major areas that are going to be
examined here.
i. Retrofitting of adjacent structures to reduce dynamic response
ii. Retrofitting of asymmetrical structures in order to reduce torsional
response.
In the first case researches such as Jankowski, 2008 studied the effect of the
difference of stiffness and mass on the vibration of two equal height structures. He
found that variations in mass, stiffness and gap size does affect the longitudinal
pounding of the lighter building then it does the heavier building. Furthermore
Pantelides and Ma, 1998 investigated the effect that seismic gap and the inelastic
42

structural behavior will have on the magnitude of the pounding force generated
during pounding. The structure was models as a nonlinear single degree of freedom
with one side pounding. On comparison he found that inelastic structure had lower
peak velocity, acceleration and pounding force then the elastic structure.

FIGURE3. 1. Overall schematic view of the methodology of the study
There are various models that can be used for seismic study, but the model employed
here is that of a reinforced concrete framed with added on viscous dampers.
LITERATURE REVIEW
PHYSICAL MODELING CONSITUTIVE
MODELING
FORMULATION AND EXCUTION OF F.E CODE
APPLICATION ON REINFORCE
CONCRETEC STRUCTURES
STOP
START
43

Nonlinearity was considered in both the reinforced concrete frame and the viscous
dampers allowing for plastic hinge formations within the two materials. This chapter
gives the detail account of the material and structural properties and the modeling
aspects of it.
3.2. PHSICAL MODELLING
Three dimensions, nonlinear analytical model of frame element and the developed
viscous damper element are presented in the following sub sections.
3.2.1. PHYSICAL MODELING OF FRAME ELEMENT
The analytical model for RC frame members used in this investigation was
developed by Thanoon (1993-2004). It consists of three different zones as shown in
figure 3.2, the first zone is the rigid block zone located at each end of the member,
the second zone is the 3D plastic hinge zone at each end assumed to have zero length
and the remaining intermediate part of the member represents the third zone which is
assumed to remain elastic. These zones represent the finite width of the beam-
column joints, the plastic hinge zones give the inelastic properties of the member
while the central part of the member (located between two plastic hinges) is assumed
to reflect the elastic behavior of the member.
In constructing an inelastic element for a reinforced concrete section, the following,
basic assumptions, have been made: (Thanoon 1993-2004)
i) The generalized force-deformation relation of the element follows an elasto-
plastic model, having yield strengths corresponding to the ultimate capacities of
the member.
44


FIGURE3.2 Physical model of beam-column element

3.2.2. PHSICAL MODELING OF DAMPER ELEMENT
The analytical model of damper that is used here is the 3 dimensional nonlinear
damper model proposed by F. Hejazi (2008). The model consists of three zones as
shown in figure 3.2 shown below; each zone translates the different behaviors of the
damper. Rigid zone indicates the structural joint, while the hinge zone gives the
inelastic behavior of the damper (plastic hinge formation within the damper) during
inelastic analysis. The intermediate portion gives the elastic stage of the damper
therefore when the damper is still in functionality with therefore analysis within the
elastic limit.

FIGURE3.3 Real Viscous Dampers and 3-D Nonlinear Damper Element Model
Constitutive (F. Hejazi, 2008)
45

3.3. MECHANICAL PROPERTY OF DAMPER
The dampers employed in this work are viscous dampers with the basic layout o the
damper system show in figure 3.8. It consists of cylinders with silicon fluids being
forced through orifices by a stainless steel rode. The damping forced generated is
developed through the pressure difference at the ends of the piston and can be
adjusted by varying the size of orifice or even the viscous fluid used. The damping
force generated by forcing the viscous fluid through orifice is one that is in phase
with velocity although in certain case the restoring force could result in a damping
force that is rather in face with displacement than velocity.
The force-velocity relation is given by Goel, 2005:

Where

Force

Iceint
Ends of the dampers
is a positive exponent that varies from 0 to 2, but for most structural engineering
the upper limit is usually 1. When =1 the damping force varies linearly with
velocity while if <1 the damping force varies nonlinearly with the velocity. sgn( )
is the signum function and is usually taken to be 1.
46


Figure3.4 fluid viscous damper
3.4. DYNAMIC F.E FORMULATION FOR R/C FRAME STRUCTURE
The basic equation for structures under earthquake excitations considering the
equilibrium of forces is give as:

(3.9)
Where M is the mass of the structure, C is its inherent damping and K the stiffness of
the structure.

is the seismic excitation force. For the structure to dissipate the

energy absorbed during the seismic excitation it would have to undergo large
displacements which could result in plastic hinge mechanism depending on the
ductility of the structure. To overcome such a problem external dampers are
employed in structures such that most of the energy dissipation occurs through them
rather than the structure. In such case the above equation is modified for the external
damper matrix and becomes:

(3.10)
Where

is the supplementary damping coefficient?

47

For the dynamic analysis of structures with supplementary dampers the Newmark
predictor-corrector algorithm was used to solve for the defined relation
(F. Hejazi, 2008):

(3.11)
Where q is the internal resisting force and depends on the displacement (x) and the
velocity ( ,
t t t t
e d
F F
A + A +
,
are imposed control force (Viscous damper) and
applied earthquake load vector in time (t+t) respectively. Also
t t
x
A +
and
t t
x
A +

are
displacement and velocity of system in time of t+At and defined as follow
( Hejazi, 2008):
t t t t t t
u t u u
A + A + A +
A + = |
2
) (
(3.12)
t t t t t t
u t u u
A + A + A +
A + =

(3.13)
Where
t t
u
A +
and
t t
u
A +

are obtained from these equations (F. Hejazi, 2008):

t t t t t
u t u t u u ) 2 1 ( ) ( 5 . 0
2
| A + A + =
A +

( 3.14)
t t t t
u t u u

) 1 ( A + =
A +
( 3.15)
Here and are the parameters that control the accuracy and stability of the method.
The quantities
t t
u
A +
and
t t
u
A +

are the historical values and

t t
u
A +
and
t t
u
A +

are
corrector values (Hejazi, 2008).
48

3.5. CONSITUTITIVE RELATIONSHIP FOR CONCRETE AND STEEL
3.5.1. STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONSHIP OF CONCRETE
The inelastic behavior of reinforced concrete beam-column element requires the
simulation of the interaction between axial forces and bending moments. In the
present study the effect of interaction between these forces is considered in
developing the yield surface for each element. The yield function employed here is
based on the fourth order polynomial first proposed by Medland and Taylor. The
stress-strain curve is shown in Figure 3.. and the Stress
c
in concrete corresponding
to strain is given in equation (3.1).
) ( 85 . 0
2 3 4
c c c c c c
D C B A f c c c c o + + + ' = ( 3.1)
Where
c
f '
is compressive strength (cylinder) of concrete and A, B, C and D are
constant values and given as:
A = 0.292E+10, B = 0.1583E+08, C = - 0.3229E+06, D = 1.0593E+03

Figure 3.5. Stress-Strain Relation for Concrete (Medland and Taylor (1971))
Strain
S
t
r
e
s
s

U
p
0.002
f
c

c

49

3.5.2. STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONSHIP FOR STEEL
The behavior of steel in both compression and tension is a well documented behavior
through great deal of experiments steel was found to show three distinct behaviors
under loading. In the initial loading it showed an elastic behavior in which increase
in load resulted in increase in strain, this help true until the yield point where an
increase in load resulted in an increase in strain but not stress. After this stage steel
For the section a stress-strain relation for steel developed by (Thanoon, 1993) is
employed.
Material properties of steel are well known in static and dynamic loading conditions.
A typical stress-strain curve for high yield steel reinforcing bars loaded in direct
tension is as shown in
Idealization of these curves by suitable linear segments, which closely approximate
the experimental stress-strain curve, would have obvious advantages. The initial
elastic part extends up to the yield stress, followed by strain hardening part extending
up to failure. Further, for dynamic analysis, elasto-plastic approximation to the
stress-strain curve of steel is widely used for its simplicity. In the present study, an
elasto-plastic or strain hardening approximation of the behavior of the stress-strain
relation for steel is adopted as shown in
Figure 3.6.
50

(a) Uniaxial (b) Idealized
Figure 3.6. stress-strain graphs for steel

Accordingly, the stress in steel as, corresponding to strain
b
can be expressed as
follows:
Elastic state;
s s s
E c o =
( 3.2)
Elasto-Plastic;
) (
y s st y s
E f c c o + =
( 3.3)

3.6. REINFORCED CONCRETE FRAME WITH EARTHQUAKE ENERGY
DISSIPATION SYSTEM
The simulation of a reinforced concrete frame structure with added energy
dissipating devices requires an idealization of the structure that exhibits a close
approximation to actual structural behavior under seismic excitation. For this
reinforce concrete structure is idealized as a frame element consisting of beams and
columns. The reason for this idealization is that different structural member exhibit

s
f
y

51

different behaviors under seismic loading, for instance reinforce concrete structure
with an infill frame would behave differently from a frame structure with a shear
wall under seismic loading. The other structural member considered here is that of a
damper (energy dissipating device), this is the seismic response controller of the
structure and as such a proper selection for the member presentation is required in
order to generate as close as possible the actual control property of the damper.
The structural members considered in this work for modeling the reinforced concrete
structure are:
(i) Frame element
(ii) Viscous damper element
3.6.1. FRAME ELEMENT
Frame elements are models as beams and columns. The mathematical model of the
structural elements is 3 dimensional real space state representations of the structural
units (beams and columns). However since there are two different areas that are
covered here namely retrofitting of adjacent structures and the torsional response
reduction of the asymmetrical structure the layouts of the reinforced buildings varies.
In the case of the adjacent structures a 2 dimensional adjacent buildings with 3
dimensional structural members is used will in the case of asymmetrical reinforce
concrete frame structures a 3 dimensional building structure is considered.
The 3 dimensional structural members modeling give a more actual presentation of
the formation of plastic hinges within the structural members during the inelastic
analysis. Figure 3.7 shows the presentation of structural members (beams and
columns)
52


Figure 37: structural members of frame element
3.6.2. VISCOUS DAMPER ELEMENT
The model for dampers employed in this work is that which was developed by Hejazi
(2008) and shown below.


Figure 38: damper frame elements with added damper element
The model that was proposed for the damper by Hejazi (2008) was a 3 dimensional
nonlinear element that is compatible with the mathematical model initial generated
for the reinforced concrete frame.

Damper element
Beam element






Beam e Beam
element
Beam
element


Column element


53

3.7. COMPUTER PROGRAM
The computer program employed in this work is a finite element program code
which was developed by F. Hejazi (2010). This program analysis reinforced concrete
frame structures equipped with earthquake energy dissipation system in the elastic
and inelastic state. The developed program is capable of performing the following
analyses:
(i) Linear static
(ii) Nonlinear static
(iii)Linear dynamic
(iv) Nonlinear dynamic
The program is couple of giving the following results (F. Hejazi, 2008):
(i) It checks yielding that may occur at the ends of any element.
(ii) It calculates the inelastic forces to be redistributed in the next iteration.
(iii)It calculates the plastic deformations.
(iv) It calculates the stiffness matrix, considering current state of stress resultants
It calculates damper damping force and modifies it in each iteration base on the
optimum control system.
3.8. WORK LAYOUT CHART
Although the affects of earthquake on man built environment is an extensive field of
study, this work here is only limited to two parameters namely that of pounding
between two adjacent structures and torsional response of asymmetrical structures.
Both of these parameters have great catastrophic affects on how a structure
performance during and after earth quakes. For instance pounding between two
adjacent structures of different dynamic properties could lead to floor or mid column
54

pounding, with the latter case being more destructive since the top floor of a shorter
structure pounds against the column of the taller building which in turn leads to
failure of load resisting members in that region. This localized damage if extensive
could cause ultimately the failure of structure.
Since it his apparent that simplified models were not adequate enough to capture the
true structural response of reinforced concrete structures under earthquake loading, it
was seen as fit that a more actual R/C structure models should be used. This work is
a continuation of the work done by (Thanoon 1998) and further extended by (Hejazi
2010). The following chart shows the layout of the work plan for (Hejazi 2010).

Figure 3.9 Overall schematic view of present study (Hejazi 2010).
55

Through literature review three R/C frame models are selected to study pounding
affect in adjacent buildings the lateral-torsional couple in asymmetrical structures.
For the pounding case two adjacent R/C frame buildings were selected for the case
study, a 6 story building adjacent to a 12 story building. The separation distance
between the two buildings is 2 cm which was not sufficient to accommodate
structural displacements. Damper where then applied to reduce the displacement of
the structures (findings will be discussed in the results).
For the asymmetrical structures two 3D buildings where examined one with uni-
eccentricity in stiffness and the other bi-direction eccentricity in the plan of the
building. It was found that using the bi-eccentric model subjected to a 3 dimensional
earthquake excitation did give better structural performance picture of building
response under seismic excitation.
In both all three models use of viscous dampers reduced the structural response under
seismic excitation. Finding will be discussed in the following chapter (results)







.
56

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. INTRODUCTION
In chapter 3 the choice of elements to represent the R/C frame structures equipped
with energy dissipation devices has been covered. Furthermore the material
constitutive modeling and program code were also covered in chapter 3.
The application of the proposed methodology will be cover in this chapter using
three different structural models. Following are the examples that are investigated in
this work:
i) Two adjacent structures separated by a seismic gap of 2cm
ii) A uni-asymmetrical 6 story RC frame structures
iii) A bi-asymmetrical RC structures
The response of the structures with respect to displacement, shear force, moment and
plastic hinge formations are plotted and discussed technically.

Figure 4.1 layout of analysis procedure
Define material, geometry and section
properties of RC frame building
Define damper section and
geometric properties
Apply uniform and concentrated static
load and perform static analysis to gain
member forces
Perform dynamic analysis to determine
dynamic response
Earthquake load
57

4.2. DEFINE RC FRAME MODEL PARAMETERS
Through the literature reviewed, actual structural models were selected along with
their actual dimensions. On selecting the desire model the material, section and
geometric properties were then feed into the F.E code.
In this work there are three models that were selected from papers that were viewed,
first model is of two adjacent structures one of 6 stories and the other of 12 stories.
The two structures were separated by a gap of 2 cm. in this model the effect of
placing viscous dampers was investigated. The second and the third models were
both used to investigate how viscous dampers would alter the response of
asymmetrical structures under seismic excitation. Second model was a uni-
asymmetrical 6 story 3D RC structure while the forth model was of a bi-
asymmetrical 3 story RC structure.
4.3. DEFINED DAMPER PARAMETERS
This work investigated the performance of viscous dampers placing in RC structures,
there are two major areas in which the damper performance was investigated, and
first being on pounding mitigation of adjacent structures and the second investigation
was on torsional response reduction in asymmetrical structures. The dampers
considered here are nonlinear and the damping coefficient was varied in order to pick
out the best damping coefficient for the dampers. In the F.E code the damper length
and damping coefficients where both defined.
4.4. PREFROM STATIC ANALYSIS
Static analysis was preformed foremost; this was done so what the member force
could be determined. Before performing the static analysis the model structures were
58

subjected to super imposed dead and live static loads which were imposed at all floor
levels.
4.5. SELECT EARTHQUAKE RECORD
All the investigations carried out in this work were subjected to El centre earthquake
record, for the 2D pounding problem of the adjacent structures were subjected to a 2
component (one horizontal record and one vertical record) El centre earth quake.
While for the torsional problem in asymmetrical structures both models were
subjected to 3 component EL centre earthquake record with T= 53 sacs. On selecting
the earthquake record dynamic analysis was preformed. The layouts of investigation
are as given below.
i. Use actual dimensions of models from literature review.
ii. Apply the static dead and live load to the buildings and carry out static
analysis in order to determine member forces which will be as initial
loadings in dynamic analysis.
iii. Subject the structure to seismic excitation using the earthquake records.
iv. Perform nonlinear seismic analysis for the structure.
v. The seismic response of structures is plotted as displacements (translation
and rotations) and plastic hinges. If these plots are within the code
acceptance then the analysis is terminated. If however the design does not
meet the code requirement, supplemental dampers are installed ( viscous
dampers)
vi. Perform dynamic analysis again with dampers in place, if can the code
provisions are not met change damper properties such as damping
coefficient
59

vii. Steps 2 to 6 are repeated until the design criteria are satisfied in step 4 and
the suitable design is obtained.
Based on the final decision, the properties of suitable viscous damper are
recommended.
4.6. APPLICATION OF VISCOUS DAMPERS
This chapter considers the performance of the proposed control system when applied
to full scale RC buildings. There are three different cases investigated in this chapter,
the first case investigates pounding of two adjacent structures and examines how
implementing the proposed control system reduces the pounding of two structures.
The second and third cases examine the torsional response affect on two
asymmetrical structures. In case 2 a uni-asymmetrical systems is investigated for
torsional response and then retrofitted with viscous dampers first in 3 sides and then
in four sides. The results of 3 side retrofitting and 4 side retrofitting are then
compared. For the third case a bi-asymmetrical system retrofitted with viscous
dampers is excited by a 3 component earth quake.
4.7. CASE 1 POUNDING MITIGATION OF ADJACENT STRUCTURES
In this case two adjacent structures of 6-story and 12-story were investigated for
pounding. The two buildings were separated by a gap of 2 cm which during the
analysis of the two structures under El. Centro earthquake was found to be
inadequate to accommodate the relative displacements of the structures. Viscous
dampers were then introduced in to the two buildings being distributed through the
full height of the short building and the same goes for the tall structure except the
middle bay was not retrofitted. Figure 4.2 shows the layout of two adjacent structures
60

along with the tabulated section properties of member elements and the distribution
of dampers is as shown in figure 4.3:


Fig 4.2 model plot for 2D adjacent RC structures

Table 4.1 cross-section and reinforcement of structural members

SECTION AREA
(CM)
MAIN REINFORCEMENT
BEAM 30*50
TOP 2 NO 6 DIA BOTTOM 6 NO16 DIA
COLUMN 30*50
8 NO 16 DIA
COLUMN 30*80
12 NO 16 DIA
COLUMN 30*140
22 NO 16 DIA
61


Figure 4.3: distribution of dampers (blue colored elements)
The following figures highlight the displacements of the two adjacent structures
without damping (dampers were place in the structures but had zero damping
coefficients). Their relative displacements were found to be greater than the gap
provided between the structures hence resulting in pounding of the structures.

Figure 4.4 pounding in adjacent structures
Now since increasing the gap between the buildings is not possible the damper
damping coefficient was increased until there was no pounding. The following
displacement time history responses are plotted for nodes 21 for the first building and
62

node 7 for the second building. Both nodes are at the same height level and this is the
point of contact between the two buildings during pounding. The shorter building in
this work is denoted as building 1 while the taller is denoted as the building 2.


Without damper With damper Amount of reduction
Max: 3.18E+01 1.02E+00 97.03%
Min: -4.63E+01 -1.30E+00
X direction for building 1

Without damper With damper Amount of reduction
Max: 3.52E+01 2.82E+00 90.4%
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
63

Min: -3.67E+01 -4.09E+00
X direction for building 2
Figure 4.5 lateral displacements for building 1 and 2
From the above plots of displacement in x direction for building 1 and 2, increasing
the damping coefficient of the dampers from zero to 800KN.sec/m resulted in
displacement reductions of 97.03% and 90.4% respectively. This meant that the
pounding effect which resulted for the large lateral displacement of the two
structures was no longer present since both structures had displacements much less
then 5mm.

Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 2.45E+03 2.19E+03 41%
Min: 1.67E+03 1.73E+03
Axial Force

1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2000
2100
2200
2300
2400
2500
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
A
x
i
a
l

F
o
r
c
e

(
k
N
)
With out damper
With Damper
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
S
h
e
a
r

i
n

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
) With out damper
With Damper
64

Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 1.42E+01 -3.68E+00 73%
Min: -3.86E+01 -1.73E+01
Shear Force in Y direction


Without damper With damper reductions
Max: 6.04E+02 7.42E+00 76%
Min: -1.12E+03 -4.10E+02
Moment in Z direction
Figure 4.6 axial and shear force reductions
In terms of stress, viscous dampers did reduce them considerable. The axial force
was reduced by 41% while the shear force and moment were reduced by 73% and
76% respectively. One key area to not is that pounding effect in adjacent structures
increase the shear forces, the above force were plotted for element 31 which is the
first column in the tall structure.
4.8. CASE 2 TORSIONAL RESPONSE REDUCTION OF UNI-ASYMMETRICAL
STRUCTURE
In this case a 6 story RC asymmetrical structure was examined. Asymmetry in the
structure was due to the distribution of stiffness in the lateral resisting frames, with
one side frames having columns of large stiffness as compared to the other three side
-1200
-1000
-800
-600
-400
-200
0
200
400
600
800
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
M
o
m
e
n
t

a
r
o
u
n
d

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
65

frames. This distribution of stiffness resulted in asymmetry along the x-axis. Due to
this difference in stiffness distribution it was found that when the structure was
excited with El centre earth quake record the less stiff side experience a large
torsional response as compared to the stiffer side. This larger lateral- torsional couple
leads to large ductility demand on the less stiff side frames(Thambiratnam and
Corderoy, 1994),(Garca et al., 2007). For this reason dampers were installed in the
model. The dampers were first place in 3 less stiff sides of the model and then
distributed symmetrical throughout the model (all four side frames retrofitted). The
layout of the model along with section properties and damper distributions are shown
in the following figures:

Figure 4.7 model front view and top view
66


Figure 4.8 damper distributions in 3 side frame
Retrofitting the above asymmetrical structure with viscous dampers did reduce the
displacement, shear force and torsion in the structure. On comparing the result of
asymmetrical and symmetrical distributed dampers it was found that symmetrical
distribution resulted in better reductions of all three parameters. Following are
displacement comparison for 3 side and 4s damper distributions for node 18 on the
less stiff side.

Displacement in X direction
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
C
=
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
4
S
)
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

i
n

X

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
m
m
)
67


Displacement in Y direction

Displacement in Z direction
Figure 4.9 nodal displacements in x, y and z directions
As seen from above figures the displacement in both x and z directions were reduce
in both 3 and 4 side damper distributions, with the 4 side distribution have larger
reductions comparatively. However the displacements in the y direction were
increased slightly for 4 side distribution as compared with the 3 side distribution.
Following are the time history responses for node 18. Distributing the dampers
symmetrical in the model resulted in better performance in terms of response
reduction; one reason could be due to the affect of damper distribution which was an
asymmetrical distributed when the dampers were placed in 3 sides only (side with
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
C
=
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
4
S
)
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

i
n

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
m
m
)
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
C
=
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
2
0

(
4
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
3
S
)
C
=
4
0

(
4
S
)
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

i
n

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
m
m
)
68

less stiff frames). Although the dampers did reduce the displacements in the x
direction, they did however increase the displacement in y direction.

Without Damper 3S 4S
Amount of reduction
3S 4S
Min -37.8758 -28.2515 -25.4617 25% 34%
Max 36.4405 27.6917 23.6974
Displacement in X direction

Without Damper 3S 4S
Amount of reductions
3S 4S
Min -0.41403 -0.40834 -0.405464 39.84% 50.23%
Max 0.356844 0.669674 0.752697
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
With out damper
3 Side Damper
4 Side Damper
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
With out damper
3 Side Damper
4 Side Damper
69

Displacement in Y direction


W.O Damper 3S 4S
Amount of reduction
3S 4S
Min -50.7354 -37.9151 -30.8801 23% 36%
Max 38.7954 31.4585 26.8319
Displacement in Z direction
Figure 4.10 time history displacements x in z direction
The displacements in Z direction were found to be reduced on the structure was
retrofitted with viscous dampers. The reductions were found to be 23% and 36% for
3 side 4 side damper distributions respectively. Although the magnitudes of rotations
in all three directions were very small, installing viscous dampers in either 3 sides or
four sides did further reduce the torsional response in y direction while increasing the
rotations in x and z. the following table shows the displacement and rotations for
increased damper damping coefficient.

Displacement
X Y Z
C=0 Max 36.44 0.357 38.8
Min -37.9 -0.41 -50.7
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
With out damper
3 Side Damper
4 Side Damper
70

RESULTS FOR DAMPER DISTRIBUTION IN 3 SIDES
C=20 Max 29.39 0.694 35.09
Min -32.9 -0.41 -43.5
AMOUNT OF REDUCTION 16% 43.9% 12%
C=40 Max 27.69 0.67 31.46
Min -28.3 -0.41 -37.9
AMOUNT OF REDUCTION 25% 41% 23%
RESULTS OF DAMPER DISTRIBUTION IN ALL FOUR SIDES
C=20 Max 27.09 0.622 32.09
Min -31 -0.41 -38.9
AMOUNT OF REDUCTION 22% 35% 21%
C=40 Max 23.7 0.753 26.83
Min -25.5 -0.41 -30.9
AMOUNT OF REDUCTION 34% 52% 35%
Table 4.2 displacements and rotations for varying damper coefficients
During the investigation it was found that placing viscous dampers in the modeled
structure the displacement in X and Z directions were reduced. The amount of
reduction depended on the damping coefficient of the damper and the arrangement of
the viscous dampers. For instance when the damping coefficient was kept constant at
20KN.sec/m the 3 side damper distribution reduced the displacement in the X and Z
directions by 16% and 12 % respectively while the 4 side damper distribution reduce
the same displacement components by 22% and 21% respectively. However for both
damper damping coefficient and distribution the Y displacement component was
increased.
71

Both 3 and 4 side damper distributions did in fact reduce the axial, shear and,
torsional forces in the model. Moment response of the modeled structured was also
reduce for both damper distributions considered; however the results are only given
for 4 side damper distributions since the amount of reductions in said parameters
were larger in the considered case of damper distribution. For asymmetrical
structures retrofitting was done to reduce the torsional response of the structure,
which in this case was reduced by 63%.

Without damper 4s damper distribution Reduction
Max: 3.60E+02 3.44E+02 20%
Min: -3.96E+00 5.27E+01
Axial Force
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
A
x
i
a
l

F
o
r
c
e

(
k
N
)
With out damper
With Damper
72


Without damper 4s damper distribution Reduction
Max: 1.52E+01 7.33E+00 80.4%
Min: -3.54E+01 -2.60E+01
Shear Force in Y direction

Without damper 4s damper distribution Reduction
Max: 7.32E+01 5.14E+01 35%
Min: -9.31E+01 -5.71E+01
Shear Force in Z direction
Figures 4.11 shear force in x, y and z directions
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
S
h
e
a
r

i
n

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
) With out damper
With Damper
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
S
h
e
a
r

i
n

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
)
With out damper
With Damper
73


Without damper 4s damper distribution Reduction (%)
Max: 1.24E+02 5.00E+01 63%
Min: -1.59E+02 -5.49E+01
Torsion

Without damper Damper in 4 sides Reduction (%)
Max: 6.02E+03 3.94E+03 24%
Min: -5.69E+03 -5.00E+03
Moment in Y direction
-200
-150
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
T
o
r
s
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
-6000
-4000
-2000
0
2000
4000
6000
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
M
o
m
e
n
t

a
r
o
u
n
d

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
74


Without damper Damper in 4 sides
Reduction
(%)
Max: 7.83E+02 4.53E+02 37%
Min: -1.16E+03 -7.72E+02
Moment in Z direction
Figure 4.12 torsion and moments in x, y and z directions respectively
Retrofitting the structure with viscous dampers increased both the section plastic
hinges and the total number of plastic hinges formed within the model
4.9. CASE 3 TORSIONAL RESPONSE REDUCTION OF BI-ASYMMETRICAL
STRUCTURE
The most serve case of lateral-torsional couple occurs when a bi-asymmetrical
structure model is excited by 3 component earthquake. For this reason a three-storey
building with plan bi- asymmetrical rectangular cross-section, shown in Figure 4.11
is investigated for torsional response. All the columns in this building are symmetric
with 450 mm x450mm cross-section and have a height of 3.5 m between floor
levels the modeled structure was excited with 3 component EL centre earthquake
with T = 53 secs. In the analysis of the model for zero damping it was found that it
experience large torsional responses when excited. Dampers were than places in the
wide side frames. The displacements and rotations are plotted for nodes 20 were as
the stresses are plotted for element 1.
-1200
-1000
-800
-600
-400
-200
0
200
400
600
800
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
M
o
m
e
n
t

a
r
o
u
n
d

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
75


Figure 4.13 plan bi-asymmetrical 3 story RC frame structure



Displacement in X direction
-6
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
C
=
0
C
=
2
5
0
C
=
5
0
0
C
=
7
5
0
C
=
1
0
0
0
C
=
1
2
5
0
C
=
1
5
0
0
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

i
n

X

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
m
m
)
76


Displacement in Z direction
Figure 4.12 displacements in X and Z directions
From the above plots of displacement in two horizontal directions for the bi
asymmetrical model, it was found that retrofitting the model with viscous dampers
did reduce the displacements in both directions considerably. Although not shown
here the y displacements were also reduced though not as significant as the other two
directions. However it is these two directional displacements that are responsible for
the lateral torsional coupling response of the structural modal and hence their
reductions are of importance. The rotational displacements of the structural modal in
all three directions were found to be very small and placement of the dampers did
further reduce those values in to insignificant numbers.
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
C
=
0
C
=
2
5
0
C
=
5
0
0
C
=
7
5
0
C
=
1
0
0
0
C
=
1
2
5
0
C
=
1
5
0
0
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

i
n

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
m
m
)
77


Rotation in X direction

Rotation in Z direction
Figure 4.14 rotations in X and Z directions
DAMPING
COEFFICIENT
(KN.sec/m)
DISPLACEMENT(mm)
X Y Z
C=0 Max 4.2082 0 8.739
Min -4.7554 -0.2897 -7.6292

C=250 Max 2.2313 0 3.4987
-0.0003
-0.0002
-0.0001
0
0.0001
0.0002
0.0003
C
=
0
C
=
2
5
0
C
=
5
0
0
C
=
7
5
0
C
=
1
0
0
0
C
=
1
2
5
0
C
=
1
5
0
0
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

R
o
t
a
t
i
o
n

a
r
r
o
u
n
d

X

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
R
a
d
)
-0.00015
-0.0001
-0.00005
0
0.00005
0.0001
0.00015
0.0002
C
=
0
C
=
2
5
0
C
=
5
0
0
C
=
7
5
0
C
=
1
0
0
0
C
=
1
2
5
0
C
=
1
5
0
0
Di fferent Damper Dampi ng Coeffi ci ent
M
A
X

&

M
I
N

R
o
t
a
t
i
o
n

a
r
r
o
u
n
d

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
(
R
a
d
)
78

Min -3.028 -0.2799 -5.1991
REDUCTIONS 41% 3.4% 47%
C=500 Max 1.5079 0 2.4716
Min -2.2335 -0.2781 -4.4948
REDUCTIONS 58% 4% 57%
C=750 Max 1.2978 0 2.1378
Min -1.803 -0.2766 -3.8206
REDUCTIONS 65% 4.5% 64%
C=1000 Max 1.1561 0 1.8689
Min -1.5538 -0.2751 -3.3068
REDUCTIONS 70% 5% 68%
C=1250 Max 1.0617 0 1.64
Min -1.3963 -0.2739 -2.8722
REDUCTIONS 73% 5% 72%
C=1500 Max 0.9793 0 1.4431
Min -1.2719 -0.2738 -2.5412
REDUCTIONS 75% 5.5% 76%
Table 4.3 displacement reductions in X, Y and Z for node 20
From the above table it is seen that retrofitting of the modeled structure did in fact
reduce the displacement in all directions. Move horizontal displacements (X and Z)
which are the main contributors to the lateral-torsional couple of the structure are
considerable reduced. As the damper damping coefficient was increase the amount of
reduction for displacements increased.
The following graphs are the displacement time history response of node 20. The
dark line indicates the displacement time history responses of the structure when
retrofitted with viscous damper of 1500KN.sec/m were as the broken line represents
zero damping coefficients.
79


Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 4.21E+00 9.79E-01 75%
Min: -4.76E+00 -1.27E+00
Displacement in X direction

Without damper With damper reduction
Max: -5.88E-02 -4.52E-02 1%
Min: -2.90E-01 -2.74E-01
Displacement in Y direction
-6
-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
-0.25
-0.23
-0.21
-0.19
-0.17
-0.15
-0.13
-0.11
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
80


Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 8.74E+00 1.44E+00 76%
Min: -7.63E+00 -2.54E+00
Displacement in Z direction
Figure 4.15 displacement time history responses for node 20
Following graphs are plots of stress for element one, again the result follows the
same pattern as previous results except for the for the x component. In the initial few
seconds of stress time history response of the element 1 in the x-direction viscous
damper were found to have increase the axial force, however for time 3 sec the result
started to decrease considerable until final reduction of 14% was noted for damping
coefficient of 1500KN.sec/m. The largest shear force reduction was found to be 60%
which was in the z direction
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)
81


Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 6.49E+02 6.59E+02 14%
Min: 4.23E+02 4.02E+02
Axial Force


Without
damper With damper
Reduction
Max: -3.46E+01 -4.49E+01 44%
Min: -7.04E+01 -6.49E+01
Shear Force in Y direction

400
450
500
550
600
650
700
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
A
x
i
a
l

F
o
r
c
e

(
k
N
)
With out damper
With Damper
-80
-75
-70
-65
-60
-55
-50
-45
-40
-35
-30
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
S
h
e
a
r

i
n

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
) With out damper
With Damper
82


Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 3.00E+01 1.08E+01 60%
Min: -3.39E+01 -1.48E+01
Shear Force in Z direction
Figure 4.16 axial and shear force time history response for element one
In this work the key investigation was determining how viscous dampers install in
the structure would reduce the torsional response of bi-asymmetrical structure
subjected to a 3 component earthquake. The following graphs are the time history
response for torsion and moments. As was expected install viscous dampers in the
system did reduce the torsional response of the bi-asymmetrical modeled system by a
factor of 85%.


-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
S
h
e
a
r

i
n

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
)
With out damper
With Damper
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
T
o
r
s
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
83

Without damper With damper reduction
Max: 3.94E+01 -7.59E+00 85%
Min: -8.24E+01 -2.59E+01
Torsion


Without
damper With damper
Reduction
Max: 8.40E+02 2.87E+02 63%
Min: -8.51E+02 -3.34E+02
Moment in Y direction

Without damper With damper Reductions
Max: -2.09E+02 -4.36E+02 44%
Min: -9.97E+02 -8.79E+02
Moment in Z direction
Figure 4.17 torsion and moment time history response of element 1
-1000
-800
-600
-400
-200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
M
o
m
e
n
t

a
r
o
u
n
d

Y

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
-1000
-900
-800
-700
-600
-500
-400
-300
-200
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (Sec)
M
o
m
e
n
t

a
r
o
u
n
d

Z

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n

(
k
N
.
m
)
With out damper
With Damper
84

5. CONCLUSION
5.1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of this work was to investigate certain short comings of the previous works
review in the literature. Two key areas are investigated and the results obtained from
the investigation agree with those found in the literature reviews of the same
problems solved using simplified models and analysis methods. The aim of this work
was to get more realistic results that would agree with actual real structure behaviors
under seismic load. Hence three actual structural models were selected and time
history analysis was preformed. This investigation is limited to pounding and
torsional response reductions of RC frame structures using viscous dampers.
5.2. LITERATUREEIVEW
Based on the literature reviewed on seismic performance of adjacent and
asymmetrical structures under seismic excitations for 2D and 3D RC frame structures
the following points following points lead to this work
i. Pounding mitigation of adjacent structures using viscous dampers
ii. Torsional response reduction in asymmetrical structures
5.3. CASE 1 POUNDING MITIGATION OF ADJACENT STRUCTURES
The first case examined two adjacent structures one of 6 stories and the other of 12
stories separated by a gap of 2 cm. when the structures were excited by El centre
earthquake record with T = 53 sec it was found that both structures displaced more
than the gap between them could accommodate. Hence structural pounding occurred
at the roof top of the shorter building and the corresponding floor level of taller
building. The pounding of the structures lead to larger shear forces which lead,
although no localized failure was noted for this specific model and gap, it might be
85

possible for taller structural models. In order to prevent such structural poundings
viscous dampers were installed in the adjacent buildings and time history analysis
was perform for the same earthquake loading.
It was found that by retrofitting the short and tall buildings (referred to as building 1
and 2 respectively) with viscous dampers the displacement in the x direction were
reduce by 90.4% and 97% respectively. Hence limiting the horizontal displace of the
two adjacent buildings within 5mm which is easily accommodated by the provided
gap between the buildings. Due to the difficult of handling large data obtained from
the analysis only a single element shear force could be plotted in this case a column
of the tall building was selected. Viscous dampers used were not only capable of
reducing the displacement of the structures but also reduced the shear forces of the
structures considerable, for the selected column the shear force was reduced by 73%
while the axial force and moment reduced by 41% and 76% respectively.
5.4. CASE 2 TORSIONAL RESPONSE REDUCTIONS OF
UNIASYMMETRICAL STRUCTURES
In this case a 3D 6 story RC frame structure was investigated for torsional response
under seismic excitation. The asymmetry in the structure was due to the stiffness
distribution in the load resisting members. The stiffer sides, being the side whose
columns are highlighted in blue in figure 4.7. Due to the asymmetrical distribution of
stiffness, it was found that there was a large torsional demand on the less stiff side
(columns on the edges opposite to the stiff side). In order to control these effect
viscous dampers were distributed in the structure first in the 3 less stiff sides than
distributed in all four sides. The 3 side and 4 side damper distributions are then
compared to see which produce larger reductions in torsional response of the
structure. The 3 side damper distribution will be referred to as asymmetrical
86

distribution while the 4 side distribution will be referred to as symmetrical
distribution. For the asymmetrical distribution the two horizontal displacements X
and Z were found to be reduced by 25% and 23% respectively for the asymmetrical
distribution while for the symmetrical distribution the reductions were larger and
found to be 34% and 36% respectively. For both asymmetrical and symmetrical
distributions the Y displacement component were reduced by 39.84% and50.23%.
hence symmetrical distribution of dampers did result in better displace response
reductions, this could be due to the fact that the dampers do not enhance the stiffness
of the structure so by distributing them asymmetrical would in turn lead to a second
eccentricity in the structure this time it would be due to damper distribution.
Since symmetrical damper distribution preformed better of displacement reductions
the stress reductions give here would be only for the symmetrical distribution which
were again here then their counterpart.
The axial force of the structure was reduced by 20% while the shear forces in the y
and z axis were reduced by 80.4% and 35% respectively. However the key response
that is being investigated is the torsional response of the structure and it was found
by placing dampers the torsional force was reduced by 63% while the moments in y
and z directions were reduced by 24% and 37% respectively. Hence dampers did
actual reduced the lateral-torsional response of the structures. Although the above
percentages are for damper damping coefficient of 800KN.sec/m the amount of
reductions provide by this elements is really remarkable.
5.5. CASE 3 TORISONAL RESPONSE REDUCTIONS OF BI-ASYMMETRICAL
STRUCRURES
This case investigated the torsional response of a bi-asymmetrical structure subjected
to 3 component earthquakes. This is a more server case as compared to the first in
87

which a uni-asymmetrical real structural model was excited by 3 component El
centre earthquake. The real structure model investigated in this case is of 3 stories
with symmetrical columns of 450mm*45omm cross-sections, the beams are of
350mm*450mm. the floor heights of the structure are uniform and are of 3.5 meters,
the structure is made up to 2 bays in each orthogonal directional the short bay being
of 3.5m while the longer bay is of 6.5m. on exciting the structure with El centre
earthquake record it was found that large torsional response were noted for the longer
bays. The dampers were provided in these bays in order to reduce the displacements
and stress in these bays. The following percentage reductions in displacements are
given for node 20 each is on the most effected side while the stress are for element 1
this are highlighted in figure 4.11.
When the structure was retrofitted with dampers in the above said manner the two
horizontal displacements (X and Z) which were responsible of the torsional affect
were reduced by 75% and 76% respectively while the y component was reduced by
1% only. As for the stresses the axial forces was reduced by 145 while the shear
force in Y and Z were reduced by 44% and 60% respectively. The torsional force
was reduced by 85% while moments in Y and Z directions were reduce by 63% and
44% respectively.
5.6. OVER ALL RESPONSE OF RC FRAME STRUCTURES RETROFITTED
ITH VISCOUS DAMPERS
By retrofitting RC frame structures with viscous dampers in both adjacent and
asymmetrical structures the response of the structures were reduce. For the case of
pounding the adjacent structures were separated by a gap of 2cm which was
insufficient to accommodate the relative displacements of the structures. But by
install viscous dampers in the two adjacent buildings the displacements of the two
88

structures were considerable reduced thereby preventing structural pounding. Second
all the stresses within the structures were also reduce. As for the uni-asymmetrical
and bi-asymmetrical structures, the torsional response which was due to stiffness
distribution in the first case and plan asymmetry for the second was reduced with the
aid of viscous dampers. For the case of asymmetrical structures the amount of
reductions in structural response was found to be dependent on the distribution of
dampers in structures, for this reason it is important to select a proper distribution of
dampers to achieve effective reduction without having to employ large number of
dampers.
5.7. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES
For better understanding the actual behavior of real RC frame structures under
seismic excitations we have to look into model system that we used to study them,
simplified models and simplified analysis I not give actual site problems faced with
RC frame structures under earthquake loads.
Secondly parameters such as soil structure interactions are very important problems
that need to be studied, so far in the literature reviewed investigation of soil structure
interactions have not be explored. The behavior of structures under different soil
systems will greatly affect how the structure will respond once excited
Thirdly lateral torsional couple of adjacent buildings with insufficient seismic gap
could lead to a more server case then just lateral pounding between adjacent
structures. Special since now multi-story structures with eccentricities in stiffness
due to discontinued structural members are visible in all our major cities.
89

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AGARWAL, V. K., NIEDZWECKI, J. M. & VAN DE LINDT, J. W. 2007.
Earthquake induced pounding in friction varying base isolated buildings.
Engineering Structures, 29, 2825-2832.
BENAVENT-CLIMENT, A. 2006. Influence of hysteretic dampers on the seismic
response of reinforced concrete wide beam-column connections. Engineering
Structures, 28, 580-592.
95

CHEN, X.-W., LI, J.-X. & CHEANG, J. 2010. Seismic performance analysis of
Wenchuan Hospital structure with viscous dampers. The Structural Design of
Tall and Special Buildings, 19, 397-419.
ERDURAN, E. 2008. Assessment of current nonlinear static procedures on the
estimation of torsional effects in low-rise frame buildings. Engineering
Structures, 30, 2548-2558.
GARCA, M., DE LA LLERA, J. C. & ALMAZN, J. L. 2007. Torsional balance of
plan asymmetric structures with viscoelastic dampers. Engineering
Structures, 29, 914-932.
GOEL, R. K. 1998. Effects of supplemental viscous damping on seismic response of
asymmetric-plan systems. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics,
27, 125-141.
GOEL, R. K. 2000. Seismic behaviour of asymmetric buildings with supplemental
damping. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 29, 461-480.
GOEL, R. K. 2005. Seismic response of linear and non-linear asymmetric systems
with non-linear fluid viscous dampers. Earthquake Engineering & Structural
Dynamics, 34, 825-846.
GOEL, R. K. & BOOKER, C. A. 2001. Effects of supplemental viscous damping on
inelastic seismic response of asymmetric systems. Earthquake Engineering &
Structural Dynamics, 30, 411-430.
HONG, H. P., WANG, S. S. & HONG, P. 2003. Critical building separation distance
in reducing pounding risk under earthquake excitation. Structural Safety, 25,
287-303.
JANKOWSKI, R. 2008. Earthquake-induced pounding between equal height
buildings with substantially different dynamic properties. Engineering
Structures, 30, 2818-2829.
JENG, V. & TZENG, W. L. 2000. Assessment of seismic pounding hazard for Taipei
City. Engineering Structures, 22, 459-471.
KASAI, K. & MAISON, B. F. 1997. Building pounding damage during the 1989
Loma Prieta earthquake. Engineering Structures, 19, 195-207.
KOMODROMOS, P. 2008. Simulation of the earthquake-induced pounding of
seismically isolated buildings. Computers & Structures, 86, 618-626.
LIN, J.-H. 1997. SEPARATION DISTANCE TO AVOID SEISMIC POUNDING
OF ADJACENT BUILDINGS. Earthquake Engineering & Structural
Dynamics, 26, 395-403.
LIN, J.-H. & WENG, C.-C. 2001. Probability analysis of seismic pounding of
adjacent buildings. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 30,
1539-1557.
LOPEZ-GARCIA, D. & SOONG, T. T. 2009. Evaluation of current criteria in
predicting the separation necessary to prevent seismic pounding between
nonlinear hysteretic structural systems. Engineering Structures, 31, 1217-
1229.
LU, X. L., XU, Y. L. & YANG, Z. 2002. Seismic control of adjacent buildings using
fluid dampers: Experimental study. In: ANSON, M., KO, J. M. & LAM, E. S.
S. (eds.) Advances in Building Technology. Oxford: Elsevier.
MANSOORI, M. R. & MOGHADAM, A. S. 2009. Using viscous damper
distribution to reduce multiple seismic responses of asymmetric structures.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 65, 2176-2185.
MUNSHI, J. A. 1997. Effect of viscoelastic dampers on hysteretic response of
reinforced concrete elements. Engineering Structures, 19, 921-935.
96

PANTELIDES, C. P. & MA, X. 1998. Linear and nonlinear pounding of structural
systems. Computers & Structures, 66, 79-92.
PINKAEW, T., LUKKUNAPRASIT, P. & CHATUPOTE, P. 2003. Seismic
effectiveness of tuned mass dampers for damage reduction of structures.
Engineering Structures, 25, 39-46.
SCHOLL, R. E. 1989. Observations of the performance of buildings during the 1985
Mexico earthquake, and structural design implications. Geotechnical and
Geological Engineering, 7, 69-99.
SHOOK, D. A., ROSCHKE, P. N., LIN, P.-Y. & LOH, C.-H. 2009. Semi-active
control of a torsionally-responsive structure. Engineering Structures, 31, 57-
68.
TEZCAN, S. S. & ULUCA, O. 2003. Reduction of earthquake response of plane
frame buildings by viscoelastic dampers. Engineering Structures, 25, 1755-
1761.
THAMBIRATNAM, D. P. & CORDEROY, H. J. B. 1994. Effects of asymmetry on
the response of multistorey buildings to earthquakes. Engineering Structures,
16, 210-221.
YOSHIDA, O. & DYKE, S. J. 2005. Response Control of Full-Scale Irregular
Buildings Using Magnetorheological Dampers. Journal of Structural
Engineering, 131, 734-742.
ZHU, H., WEN, Y. & IEMURA, H. 2001. A study on interaction control for seismic
response of parallel structures. Computers & Structures, 79, 231-242.