Bull Earthquake Eng (2013) 11:24292446

DOI 10.1007/s10518-013-9474-z
ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

On the dimensioning of viscous dampers for the

mitigation of the earthquake-induced effects in
moment-resisting frame structures
Michele Palermo Saverio Muscio Stefano Silvestri
Luca Landi Tomaso Trombetti

Received: 11 December 2012 / Accepted: 23 June 2013 / Published online: 5 July 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The effectiveness of viscous dampers in mitigating the seismic excitation impacts
upon building structures has been widely proved. Recently, with reference to the specific case
of equal mass, equal stiffness, shear-type structures, the authors developed a direct practical
procedure which gives the mechanical characteristics of the manufactured viscous dampers
capable of providing the frame structure with a prescribed value of the first damping ratio. In
this paper, a comprehensive rational framework is presented, which allows to formally extend
the validity of the proposed procedure to the more realistic case of a generic moment-resisting
frame structure. Also the influence of various lateral stiffness distributions is investigated.
Keywords Moment-resisting frame structures Added viscous dampers Design
procedure Seismic response Target damping ratio

1 Introduction
Manufactured viscous dampers are hydraulic devices which can be installed in structures in
order to mitigate the seismic effects through dissipating the kinetic energy transmitted by
the earthquake to the structure (Soong and Dargush 1997; Constantinou et al. 1998; Hart

M. Palermo (B) S. Muscio S. Silvestri L. Landi T. Trombetti

Department DICAM, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
e-mail: michele.palermo7@unibo.it
S. Muscio
e-mail: saverio.muscio3@unibo.it
S. Silvestri
e-mail: stefano.silvestri@unibo.it
L. Landi
e-mail: l.landi@unibo.it
T. Trombetti
e-mail: tomaso.trombetti@unibo.it

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and Wong 2000; Chopra 1995; Christopoulos and Filiatrault 2006). These devices have been
the object of several research works since the 1980s (Constantinou and Tadjbakhsh 1983;
Constantinou and Symans 1993; Takewaki 1997, 2000 and 2009, Singh and Moreschi 2002;
Trombetti and Silvestri 2004, 2007; Levy and Lavan 2006; Silvestri and Trombetti 2007; Diotallevi et al. 2012; Adachi et al. 2013). Most of these works basically develop sophisticated
algorithms for dampers optimization, sometimes leading to complex design procedures. Nevertheless, even if all the above cited works are remarkable from a scientific point of view, they
require a computational effort which is often beyond the common capabilities of the practical
engineers. Indeed, the issue of developing a practical method (i.e. a direct and immediate
help for the practitioners) in order to size the viscous dampers which are capable of achieving
a target level of seismic performances is still open.
In this respect, in 1992, the report NCEER-92-0032 (Constantinou and Symans 1992)
first investigated the problem of selecting the damping coefficient of linear viscous dampers
in an elastic system to provide a specific damping ratio. In 2000, the report MCEER-000010 (Ramirez et al. 2000) proposed an analytical relationship between the viscous damping
ratio in a given mode of vibration and the damping coefficients on the basis of an energetic
approach, assuming a given undamped mode shape. Starting from the fundamental results
of this research work, other methods have been proposed. Among these, the most useful for
the practitioners are likely to be the following ones: (1) Lopez Garcia (2001) developed a
simple algorithm for optimal damper configuration in Multi-Degree-Of-Freedom (MDOF)
structures, assuming a constant inter-storey height and a straight-line first modal shape; (2)
ASCE 7 (2005) absorbed the MCEER-00-0010 approach.
However, also alternative approaches leading to practical design procedures for the sizing
of the viscous dampers have been proposed in the years. Among these, the following ones
should be mentioned: (1) Christopoulos and Filiatrault (2006) suggested a design approach
for estimating the damping coefficients of added viscous dampers consisting in a trial and
error procedure; (2) Silvestri et al. (2010) proposed a direct design approach, called the
five-step procedure. A recent work by Whittle et al. (2012) compares the effectiveness of
some of the above mentioned design approaches.
The five-step procedure, which has been proposed in 2010 by some of the authors, aims
at guiding the professional engineer from the choice of the target objective performance to
the identification of the mechanical characteristics (i.e. damping coefficient and oil stiffness, for given alpha exponent) of commercially available viscous dampers. The original
version of the procedure (Silvestri et al. 2010) was developed with reference to the following assumptions: (1) a Shear-Type (referred hereafter to as ST) structure schematisation, (2)
uniform lateral stiffness distribution along the height of the building, and (3) equal floor
masses. On the other hand, in the same work (Silvestri et al. 2010), the authors added
two simple applications of the procedure developed on two moment-resisting frames (a
reinforced-concrete frame and a steel frame), which lead to overtake the assumption of ST
schematization.
The purpose of the present research work is to provide a comprehensive theoretical framework, which also allows to formally extend the validity of the proposed procedure to the
general case of a Flexible-Type (FT) structure schematisation, i.e. a structural model which
considers the actual stiffness of the beams. This objective will require a further insight
(Cheng 2001; Occhiuzzi 2009) into the damping properties of systems characterized by
not proportional damping. Moreover, a parametric study will be presented to show the
influence of the lateral stiffness distribution on the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.

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2 The rationale behind the five-step procedure

Most of the procedures proposed in the scientific literature are grounded on the energetic
approach suggested by the report MCEER-00-0010: the viscous damping ratio in a given
mode of vibration is analytically obtained as a function of the energy dissipated by the
damping system per cycle of motion in the given mode, and the maximum strain energy of
the system. However, an assumption on the modal shape is required in order to numerically
evaluate the damping ratio.
In recent years, the authors faced the same problem in an alternative way: starting from
the study of the equations of motion for damped ST structures (Trombetti and Silvestri
2006), a direct five-step procedure has been proposed for the dimensioning of the damping
coefficients of the viscous dampers (Silvestri et al. 2010). The core of this procedure (i.e.
Step 2) lies in the simple analytical relationship between the fundamental damping ratio and
the total damping coefficient of the damper system which only requires the knowledge of the
floor masses and the fundamental period of vibration of the structure. No assumption on the
fundamental modal shape is necessary, given that the effective modal shape of the first mode
of vibration of an equal mass, equal stiffness, ST system is implicitly used. The interested
reader is referred to the discussion of the underlying eigenproblem presented in sections 6,
7 and 8 of the paper by Trombetti and Silvestri (2006).
The five-step procedure has been formally developed assuming:
i Shear-type (ST) schematisation of the structure;
ii Equal lateral stiffness distribution (along the height of the building);
iii Equal mass distribution (along the height of the building).
Provided that assumption (iii) is close to the actual characteristics of common frame structures, the objective of this research work is twofold:
i To extend the procedure to generic moment-resisting frames (i.e. to remove the ST
assumption);
ii To investigate the effectiveness of the procedure with reference to other stiffness distributions.
The first objective will be reached in Sect. 3, by means of an original comprehensive framework and a parametric study carried out in the field of complex damping theory.
The second objective will be reached in Sect. 4, by means of a parametric study. Once
the characteristics of the linear viscous dampers are obtained through the first two steps of
the procedure, the designer can identify the characteristics of the actual non-linear viscous
dampers (i.e. identification of a system of manufactured viscous dampers) capable of providing the structure with actions (on the structural members) comparable to those obtained
using the linear viscous dampers identified in Step 2. All the details, including applications
of the procedure, can be found in the work by Silvestri et al. (2010).

3 Objective 1: the influence of the frame flexibility on the effectiveness of the proposed
procedure
3.1 Problem formulation
The system defined here is composed of a 2-D specific frame structure (characterized by
floor mass m i = m i = 1,,N ; column moment of inertia Ji , with i = 1,. . . , N ; N indicates

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Fig. 1 Schematic representation

of: a system A; b system B; c
system C

the total number of storeys) equipped with a specific dampers system (damping coefficients
c j , j = 1,. . . N x n, where n is the number of dampers per each floor).
System A, graphically represented in Fig. 1a, is defined as a FT frame structure (floor
mass m A,i , columns moment of inertia J A,i ) equipped with Inter-Storey viscous dampers
(damping coefficients c A, j ; total damping coefficient c A,tot , defined as the sum of the
c A, j ).
The first objective of this research work is the identification of the total damping coefficient
c A,tot of system A in order to obtain a target value, , of the first damping ratio of system A,
A:
c A,tot = f ( A ) with A =

(1)

For this purpose, it is necessary to introduce the following auxiliary systems:

System B, that is graphically represented in Fig. 1b, is defined as the ST frame structure,
with the same properties (m B,i = m A,i , J B,i = J A,i ) as defined in system A, but different
translational stiffness (k B,i  = k A,i , due to the restrained rotations of the nodes), equipped
with Inter-Storey viscous dampers, characterised by the same total damping coefficient
of the damping system of system A (c B,tot = c A,tot ). It should be mentioned that the
fundamental frequencies of the two systems, B and A , are different.
System C, that is graphically represented in Fig. 1c is defined as the ST frame structure,
with the same properties (m C,i = m B,i , JC,i = J B,i , and same restrained rotations of the

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Fig. 2 Flowchart of the scheme adopted to reach the first objective of the research work

nodes) as defined in system B, equipped with Fixed-Point viscous dampers, characterised

by the same total damping coefficient of the damping system of systems B and A (cC,tot =
c B,tot = c A,tot ). Clearly, systems B and C are characterized by the same fundamental
frequency ( B is equal to C ). According to structural dynamics (Chopra 1995), it is well
known that the total damping coefficient of system C can be expressed as a function of
the corresponding damping ratio by the following equation (mass proportional damping
schematization):

cC,tot = 2 C C m tot

(2)

Since no analytical relationships are currently available in order to express the total damping
coefficient of system A as a function of its fundamental damping ratio (i.e. Eq. (1)), then the
procedure schematically illustrated in the flowchart reported in Fig. 2 is introduced.
Provided that the three systems (A, B, and C) have been chosen so that:
c A,tot = c B,tot = cC,tot

(3)

Equation (2) may be rewritten as follows:

c A,tot = 2 C C m tot

(4)

At this point, in order to achieve the objective stated by Eq. (1), C should be expressed as a
function of A . This is obtained in two stages through the introduction of system B.
The first stage consists in the derivation of the relationship between the fundamental
damping ratios of systems C and B, and also represents the fundamental result of a previous
research work developed by the authors (Trombetti and Silvestri 2006).
The second stage consists in the derivation of the relationship between the fundamental
damping ratios of systems B and A, and represents the core of the present research work.
Details are given in the next sections.

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Fig. 3 Effectiveness of the approximation

k
N (N +1) for N varying between 1 and 20
2 =
2
mC

3.2 The relationship between the fundamental damping ratios of systems B and C
In a previous research work (Trombetti and Silvestri 2006), under the assumption of equal
lateral stiffness and floor mass at every storey (m i = m, i and ki = k, i) and under the
equal total damping coefficient constraint, the authors demonstrated that the fundamental
damping ratio of system C can be expressed as a function of the fundamental damping ratio
of system B, as follows:
C =

k
B
m C2

(5)

that can be well approximated by (Trombetti and Silvestri 2006):

N (N + 1)
C
B
=
2
where N is the total number of storeys.
Figure 3 shows the effectiveness of the approximation

(6)

N (N +1)

for N varying
=
2
between 1 and 20. The quality of the approximation increases as the total number of storeys
decreases.
k
2
mC

3.3 The relationship between the fundamental damping ratios of systems A and B
In the previous sections it has been shown that, while for systems B and C it is possible to
define the damping matrix on the basis of the Stiffness Proportional Damping (SPD) or the
Mass Proportional Damping (MPD) limiting cases respectively, for system A it is necessary
to resort to the complex damping theory (Cheng 2001; Occhiuzzi 2009). In detail, instead
of searching for an exact analytical relationship between the fundamental damping ratios of
systems A and B, an approximated numerical one has been searched.
For damped Single-Degree-Of-Freedom (SDOF) systems, an analytical relationship
between the fundamental damping ratios of systems A and B can be drawn starting from
the basic concepts of structural dynamics (Sect. 3.3.1).

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Fig. 4 a Shear-Type SDOF

system equipped with viscous
damper; b Flexible-Type SDOF
system equipped with viscous
damper

Fig. 5 Schematic representation of the MDOF frame systems used to perform the numerical analysis

For damped MDOF systems, a numerical analysis performed in the field of complex
damping has been conducted in order to verify if the same relationship still holds (Sect.
3.3.2).
3.3.1 The basic idea
Two equivalent (same mass m, same column moment of inertia J and same damping coefficient c) SDOF systems, represented in Fig. 4, are considered. The first one represents a
one-storey one-bay ST structure equipped with an Inter-Storey viscous damper system; and
the second one represents a one-storey one-bay FT structure equipped with an Inter-Storey
viscous damper system. Due to the difference in the beam stiffness, the fundamental circular
frequencies ( ST and F T ) and periods (TST and TF T ) of the two systems are not equal.
Under the above mentioned assumptions, it is easy to show that the ratio of the modal damping ratios pertained to the two systems is exactly the same as the corresponding ratio of the
fundamental periods:
=

ST
F T
c/ (2 m F T )
TF T
=
=
=
= T
ST
c/ (2 m ST )
F T
TST

(7)

3.3.2 Numerical analyses: main results

The numerical analysis has been carried out on the FT structures schematized in Fig. 5, that
are characterized by the following main properties:

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2.2

2-storey systems
3-storey systems
4-storey systems
5-storey systems
6-storey systems

1.8

1.6
1.4

1.2

1
0

infinity

Fig. 6 versus R

Total number of storeys, N , variable from 2 to 6;

Number of bays equal to 1;
Bay width equal to 6 m;
Inter-storey height equal to 3 m;
Square columns with constant cross section 40 cm 40 cm at each storey (fixed for all
the models);
Beams with constant cross section for all storeys (different for each model);
Floor mass m equal to 80,000 kg;
Beamcolumn stiffness ratio, R = kbeam /kcolumn , variable from 0.5 to (ST system);
Elastic material with Youngs modulus, E, equal to 20,000 MPa.

In these analyses, where the main purpose is to investigate the influence of the flexural flexibility of beams, the axial flexibility of the structural elements has been neglected. Considering
the kth FT system, each single analysis included the following phases: (1) evaluation of the
fundamental modal damping ratio, F T,k , by means of the complex damping theory (Cheng
2001; the interested reader can find additional details in Muscio 2009); (2) evaluation of
the first modal damping ratio of the equivalent ST system by means of the Rayleigh theory,
ST,k ; (3) evaluation of the ratio between the fundamental modal damping ratio of the FT
structure and the one of the equivalent ST structure, K ; (4) evaluation of the ratio between
the fundamental period of the FT structure and the one of the equivalent ST structure, TK .
The main results are briefly illustrated through Figs. 6, 7, 8.
Figures 6 and 7 display the ratios and T versus the ratio R , respectively. Inspection
of the graphs leads to the following deductions:
For all values, is always higher than the corresponding T ;
As it might be reasonably expected, for all R values, both and T increase with the
increase of the total number of storeys N ;
As it might be reasonably expected, both and T decrease with the increase of R .
Figure 8 renders the graphical representation of the correlation between and T . Inspection
of the graph leads to the following deductions:
and T exhibit a strong linear correlation, with correlation coefficient equal to 0.998;

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2.2
2-storey systems
3-storey systems
4-storey systems
5-storey systems
6-storey systems

1.8

1.6

1.4

1.2

1
0

infinity

R
Fig. 7 T versus R
Fig. 8 versus T

2.2

2-storey systems
3-storey systems
4-storey systems
5-storey systems
6-storey systems

1.8

1.6

1.4

1.2

1
1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

values are larger than the corresponding T values; thus, T can be assumed as a
lower bound for ;
For practical applications, can be approximately assumed equal to T ; the assumption

= T is conservative.
T ), the fundamental damping
Based on the main result of these numerical simulations ( =
ratio of system B can be expressed as a function of the fundamental damping ratio of system
A, as follows:
TB
B
= A
TA

(8)

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or:
A
B
= A
B

(9)

which represents the extension (for the case of MDOF systems) of the result given by Eq.
(7) for the case of SDOF systems.
3.4 The total damping coefficient for system A
Substitution of Eq. (9) into (6) leads to:
N (N + 1) A
C
A

=
2
B

(10)

Substitution of Eq. (10) into (4) leads to:

c A,tot = 2

N (N + 1) A

A C m tot
2
B

(11)

Given that B = C , Eq. (11) can be finally simplified as follows:

c A,tot = N (N + 1) A A m tot

(12)

Imposing that the first modal damping ratio of system A is equal to a target damping ratio
( A = ) leads to the following fundamental result:
c A,tot = N (N + 1) A m tot

(13)

which represents a simple formula for the dimensioning of the total damping coefficient of
system A (in a given direction) in order to achieve the target damping ratio .
It is possible to observe that Eq. (13) is formally coincident with Eq. (27) of (Silvestri
et al. 2010). However, while the latter was derived assuming a ST structure schematization,
Eq. (13) keeps its validity also for a generic FT frame structure.
3.5 The dimensioning of each viscous damper
Once the total damping coefficient c A,tot has been obtained, the damping coefficient of each
single damper should be evaluated.
Several studies have been carried out in the past in order to estimate the optimal dampers
distribution for inter-storey dampers placement. In a recent work, Takewaki (1997) provided a
comprehensive literature review on this topic. Basically, to date, the design methods of added
viscous dampers to buildings may be subdivided into two main categories. The first is the
most commonly used method by practical engineers, which has focused on the development
of simple design formulas for calculating the added damping ratio to the building, like
the approach proposed in this paper. However, adopting these design formulas, a limited
number of methods (Lee et al. 2008; Hwang et al. 2013) have been provided on how to
distribute the total required damping coefficients to each storey. The second category includes
several design methods based on iterative procedures aimed at obtaining the optimal damper
distribution which satisfies a certain target objective (a complete list of the works on this
subject may be found in the introduction of the book by Takewaki (2009)).
Almost all these studies highlighted that, for regular stiffness and mass distributions, a
uniform added dampers distribution usually leads to a building performance which is close
to the optimal solution. Thus, for design purposes, in the case of regular buildings, once the
total damping coefficient ctot is evaluated, a uniform dampers distribution can be adopted.

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SD-II
SD-I

Storey

1
1

11

13

15

17

Normalized stiffness
Fig. 9 The two stiffness distributions (SD-I and SD-II) adopted for the parametric study

Under this assumption, the storey damping coefficient cstor ey is given by the following
relationship:
cstor ey = (N + 1) A m tot

(14)

If n equal dampers are installed at each storey (diagonal inter-storey dampers), the damping
coefficient c of each viscous damper is given by the following simple formula:
c=

(N + 1) A m tot
n cos2

(15)

where the term cos2 accounts for the inclination of the damper with respect to the horizontal.
A further insight into the assumption of different stiffness distributions is provided in the
next section.

4 Objective 2: the influence of the lateral stiffness distribution on the effectiveness of

the proposed procedure
4.1 Problem formulation
Let us consider a reference system, referred to as System 0, composed of a ST structure,
characterised by floor mass m i = m, with i = 1,,N ; column moment of inertia Ji , = J ,
with i = 1,. . . , N (where N indicates the total number of storeys), and equipped with a
uniform distribution of inter-storey viscous dampers with damping ratio evaluated according
to Eq. (14) of the present paper.
In order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for the cases of notuniform lateral stiffness distributions, a parametric study has been developed. In detail, two
different not-uniform stiffness distributions (Fig. 9) are considered:

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Table 1 The systems defined for the parametric analysis

Stiffness distribution
SD-0 (uniform)

SD-I (area-based)

SD-II (inertia-based)

System 0
(reference
system)

System 1

System 3

System 2

System 4

Dampers distribution
DD-a uniform

DD-b stiffness
proportional

Stiffness distribution I (referred to as SD-I): columns cross section area linearly increases
starting from a minimum value at the top storey. This case is representative of r/c frame
structures designed for vertical loads;
Stiffness distribution II (referred to as SD-II): lateral stiffness is assumed proportional
to the storey shear due to a triangular horizontal forces distribution (typically of an
equivalent static seismic analysis).
The uniform stiffness distribution is referred to as SD-0. It should be noted that SD-I corresponds to a constant static axial stress criterion (area-based distribution), while SD-II
corresponds to a constant inter-storey drift criterion (inertia-based distribution).
Also two different damper distributions are considered:
Dampers distribution a (referred to as DD-a): uniform dampers distribution. In this
case, the storey damping coefficient is given by Eq. (14);
Dampers distribution b (referred to as DD-b): dampers distribution (along the height)
proportional to the lateral stiffness distribution (Christopoulos and Filiatrault (2006)
proposed an alternative procedure in order to evaluate a dampers distribution proportional
to the stiffness distribution of the unbraced structure). In this case, the generic storey
damping coefficient at the kth storey, cstor ey,k , can be calculated with the following
formula:
cstor ey,k =

Jk
N (N + 1) m tot
Jtot

(16)

which is obtained assuming a total damping coefficient ctot as per Eq. (13).
Based on the above introduced lateral stiffness and viscous dampers distributions, in
order to investigate the effectiveness of the procedure for different stiffness distributions, the
following classes of systems are introduced as (see Table 1):
System 1: the system characterised by the same mass distribution of System 0, SD-I and
DD-a;
System 2: the system characterised by the same mass distribution of System 0, SD-I and
DD-b;
System 3: the system characterised by the same mass distribution of System 0, SD-II and
DD-a;
System 4: the system characterised by the same mass distribution of System 0, SD-II and
DD-b.

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Table 2 Effectiveness of the procedure in terms of achieved fundamental damping ratio given a target damping
ratio equal to 0.30
Total number of storeys

System 0

System 1

System 2

System 3

System 4

0.39

0.51

0.31

0.39

0.43

0.39

0.53

0.34

0.41

0.43

0.39

0.48

0.37

0.44

0.44

0.39

0.50

0.39

0.46

0.44

0.38

0.51

0.40

0.46

0.43

Average

0.39

0.51

0.36

0.43

0.43

4.2 Parametric study

With reference to the 4 classes of systems introduced in the previous section (see Table 1),
a parametric analysis has been carried out aimed at investigating the effectiveness of the
proposed procedure. The characteristics of the systems are summarized as follows:

Total number of storeys, N , variable from 3 to 7;

Number of bays equal to 1;
Bay width equal to 6 m;
Inter-storey height equal to 3 m;
Beams with square cross section calibrated in order to provide a ratio R =
kbeam /kcolumn = 1.0;
Floor mass m equal to 80,000 kg;
Elastic material with Youngs modulus, E, equal to 20,000 MPa.
Damping target ratio = 0.30

Numerical time-history analyses have been performed. In these analyses, both the flexural
and the axial flexibility of the structural elements have been considered. Each system has been
subjected to a base seismic input. A set of ten artificial accelerograms generated using the
software SIMQKE (Vanmarcke et al. 1990), compatible with the design spectrum prescribed
by the Italian seismic code (NTC 2008), and corresponding to an average PGA equal to
0.25 g have been used. The following response parameters have been considered: the topstorey absolute acceleration, a, the top-storey displacement, , and the base shear, V . The
results of the time-history analyses are presented in terms of reduction factors a , and V .
For instance, the mean value (over the ten seismic records) of the displacement reduction
i( )
1 10
factor, mean , of i , is computed as: mean = 10
i=1 i , with i = i ( =0.05) , where
i ( =0.05) is the maximum value of the displacement response obtained for the bare system
(i.e. the structure without added dampers) under the ith seismic record.
Also snap-back tests have been performed in order to calculate the equivalent first-modal
damping ratio, by means of the method of the logarithmic decrement (Chopra 1995).
4.3 The main results of the parametric study
The results of the parametric analysis are summarized through Tables 2, 3, 4, 5.
First, the results of the snap-back tests are commented. Table 2 provides a summary of the
obtained damping ratios for all analyzed systems. Inspection of these results clearly shows
that the proposed procedure leads to conservative results: in all cases, the obtained damping
ratio is higher than the target one (which was equal to 0.30). The average damping ratio over

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Table 3 Effectiveness of the procedure in terms of top-storey absolute acceleration reduction factor (amean )
Total number of storeys

System 0

System 1

System 2

System 3

System 4

0.30

0.24

0.21

0.23

0.25

0.31

0.28

0.25

0.25

0.26

0.32

0.32

0.29

0.26

0.27

0.33

0.32

0.29

0.29

0.28

0.35

0.35

0.33

0.33

0.33

Average

0.32

0.30

0.27

0.27

0.28

Table 4 Effectiveness of the procedure in terms of top-storey displacement reduction factor (mean )
Total number of storeys

System 0

System 1

System 2

System 3

System 4

0.44

0.35

0.43

0.44

0.41

0.44

0.37

0.45

0.43

0.44

0.44

0.40

0.47

0.44

0.45

0.45

0.43

0.48

0.45

0.46

0.41

0.40

0.43

0.47

0.48

Average

0.44

0.39

0.45

0.45

0.45

Table 5 Effectiveness of the procedure in terms of base shear reduction factor (Vmean )
Total number of storeys

System 0

System 1

System 2

System 3

System 4

0.40

0.66

0.47

0.61

0.53

0.41

0.65

0.46

0.60

0.54

0.41

0.65

0.47

0.59

0.51

0.43

0.59

0.44

0.55

0.54

0.41

0.47

0.37

0.51

0.46

Average

0.41

0.60

0.44

0.57

0.52

all systems is equal to 0.41. It has to be noted that, if only the reference cases are considered
(i.e. ST systems with uniform stiffness distribution), an average damping ratio equal to 0.39 is
obtained. On the contrary, if only the remaining systems (i.e. those systems with not-uniform
stiffness distributions) are considered, an average damping ratio equal to 0.42 is obtained. This
suggests that stiffness distribution does not significantly affect, on average, the effectiveness
of the procedure, leading only to slightly more conservative results. Moreover, as expected, the
total number of storeys (i.e. the fundamental period of the system) does not significantly affect
the response, provided that the influence of system flexibility is already taken into account
in the formula of the ctot (Eq. 13). The confirmation of the effectiveness of the procedure
highlights also the negligible influence of the axial flexibility of the structural elements.
As far as the single classes of systems are concerned, the following observations may be
given:
If the SD-I is considered (i.e. the one farther from the uniform distribution with respect
to the SD-II), the adoption of the two dampers distributions leads to different responses:
the average damping ratio jumps from 0.50 (very conservative) for the uniform dampers

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2443

distributions to 0.36 (slightly conservative) for the stiffness proportional dampers distribution.
If the SD-II is considered, it is possible to observe that the two dampers distributions lead
to very close values (i.e. robust behaviour) of average damping ratios: 0.42 and 0.43
for the uniform dampers distributions and the stiffness proportional dampers distribution,
respectively.
In order to check the snap-back tests results, a further verification has been developed: each
bare system has been subjected to a modal time history analysis with an imposed modal
damping ratios (for all modes) as obtained from the snap-back test (as also suggested by
Christopoulos and Filiatrault 2006). The results of these time history analyses have been
compared with those obtained for the systems equipped with diagonal inter-storey viscous
dampers having damping coefficients calculated with the proposed procedure (these results
will be commented later in the present section). The comparison showed a good agreement,
thus providing a further confirmation of the effectiveness of the damping ratios as evaluated
from the snap-back tests. For sake of conciseness, Fig. 10 reports only the comparison, in
terms of average inter-storey drift profiles, of the 3- and 7-storey systems.

(a) 7
6

storey

5
4
Bare

SD-II & DD-a

2
SD-II Modal
1
0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

inter-storey drift ratio

(b) 3
Bare
SD-I & DD-a

storey

SD-I Modal

1
0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

0.025

inter-storey drift ratio

Fig. 10 Seismic inter-storey drift profiles for a 7-storey systems and b 3-storey systems, with and without
added dampers

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The results of the time-history analyses performed on the systems equipped with diagonal
inter-storey dampers, summarized through Tables 3, 4, 5, lead to the following observations:
The average top-absolute acceleration reduction factor (Table 3) is equal to 0.29. As
expected, the top-absolute acceleration reduction is affected by the fundamental period:
the reduction increases (i.e. the reduction factor decreases) as the total number of storeys
(i.e. the fundamental period) increases. Reference systems exhibit an higher average
reduction factor, 0.32, with respect to the other cases, 0.28, since the former (ST structures) are characterized by fundamental period quite lower than the latter. Despite the
influence of the fundamental period, the variability of the absolute acceleration reduction
factor is very limited;
The average top-displacement reduction factor (Table 4) is equal to 0.43 (which leads to
an equivalent damping ratio equal to 0.52 calculated inverting the formula by Bommer
et al. 2000). All classes of systems exhibit almost the same average reduction factor

(a)
6

storey

Bare

DD-a
2

DD-b

1
0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

0.025

inter-storey drift ratio

(b)

storey

Bare
DD-a

DD-b

1
0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

0.025

inter-storey drift ratio

Fig. 11 The seismic inter-storey drift profiles for the 6-storey system: a with SD-I stiffness distribution and
b SD-II stiffness distribution

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2445

(0.440.45 with a limited dispersion), except System 1 which shows the smallest average
reduction factor (0.39);
The average base shear reduction factor (Table 5) is equal to 0.50. If only the reference
cases are considered, an average base shear reduction factor of 0.41 is obtained. On the
contrary, if only the remaining systems are considered, an average base shear reduction
factor approximately equal to 0.52 is obtained. It can be noted that the variability of the
base shear reduction is larger than the variability of the other parameters.
In order to provide a further insight into the seismic response of the studied systems, Fig. 11
displays the graphs of the average (over the ten seismic records) inter-storey drift profiles
for the specific case of the 6-storey structure. It can be observed that the DD-b (damper size
proportional to lateral stiffness, i.e. large size at the base) reduces the first inter-storey drift
more than the DD-a (uniform dampers distribution), which on the contrary is more effective
at the higher storeys.
5 Conclusions
This research work investigates the effectiveness of a five-step design procedure recently
proposed by some of the authors for sizing the damping coefficients of added viscous dampers
to be inserted in moment-resisting frame systems.
The procedure provides a simple design formula for the evaluation of the total damping
coefficient of the added dampers systems leading to a specific target damping ratio, which
is only based on the knowledge of the total building mass and fundamental period. The
procedure was originally developed for the specific case of shear-type structures with uniform
distribution of floor mass and lateral stiffness.
In this paper, a comprehensive framework is presented, which allows to formally extend
the validity of the proposed procedure to the more realistic case of a generic moment-resisting
frame structure with uniform distribution of floor mass and lateral stiffness. For this purpose,
numerical analyses in the field of complex damping theory have been performed.
Moreover, the effectiveness of the five-step procedure has been investigated removing the
assumption of uniform stiffness distribution, through the development of a parametric study.
The results show that the application of the proposed procedure for the dimensioning of the
added viscous dampers in the case of not-uniform stiffness distribution leads to slightly more
conservative results with respect to the application of the procedure in the case of uniform
stiffness distribution.
Acknowledgments Financial supports of Department of Civil Protection (Reluis 20102013 Grant
Thematic Area 2, Research line 3, Task 2: Development and analysis of new technologies for the seismic
retrofit) is gratefully acknowledged.

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