Chapter 24 - Reducing Seismic Demand

24.1 Overview
Most seismic rehabilitation projects utilize rehabilitation strategies involving adding strength,
stiffness, ductility, and/or improvement load path details. Another approach, less commonly
employed, is to reduce the seismic demand on the structure. This chapter covers three methods of
reducing seismic demand on the structure: reducing the effective seismic weight, seismic
isolation, and passive damping.
24.2 Reduction of Seismic Weight
Reduction of seismic weight may reduce the seismic demand on an existing structure in certain
cases; however, the engineer must carefully evaluate the dynamic effects of such an approach
before adopting it as part of a retrofit scheme. Techniques may include replacing heavy cladding
with a curtain wall system, removing high permanent live loads, or removing upper stories. Since
removing upper stories results in a loss of usable floor area, this approach is usually considered
after an owner has built a new adjacent building that provides replacement space.
While the reduction of seismic weight may potentially improve performance by changing a
structure’s yielding sequence, reducing story drifts, reducing global overturning, or reducing base
shear, these reductions in demand, particularly base shear, may not be directly proportional to the
decrease in seismic weight. For example, the removal of a building’s upper stories will typically
shorten the structure’s fundamental period of vibration, often leading to an increased spectral
acceleration. If this increase in spectral acceleration is greater than the corresponding decrease in
seismic weight, the demand base shear on the structure will increase. Buildings with periods in
the velocity-sensitive region of the response spectrum should be evaluated for this effect early in
the development of a rehabilitation strategy. In particular, tall buildings in which much of the
seismic weight is concentrated in the lower stories are likely to have very limited benefits in base
shear reduction associated with the removal of upper stories.
24.3 Seismic Isolation
24.4 Energy Dissipation
Adding damping to an existing structure, like seismic isolation, is a relatively unusual seismic
rehabilitation strategy. The added damping reduces overall building displacement and
acceleration response, and local interstory drifts; but it can impart additional localized forces that
must be addressed.
Types of damping components: FEMA 356 provides guidance for displacement-dependent
devices or velocity-dependent devices. Displacement-dependent devices include devices that
exhibit rigid-plastic (friction devices), bilinear (metallic yielding devices) or trilinear hysteresis.
Velocity-dependent devices include solid and fluid viscoelastic devices and fluid viscous devices.
There are other devices as well, including shape-memory alloys, friction-spring assemblies with
recentering capability, and fluid restoring force-damping devices.
Applicable buildings: Most engineers believe that adding damping is most relevant in flexible
buildings, such as steel or concrete moment frames. Damping is also a common element in the
seismic isolation system, but there it must accommodate very large displacements. See Section
24.3.
System elements: Figures 24.4-1 and 24.4-2 show examples of adding damping devices in an
existing steel moment frame building to minimize drifts and demands on the beam-column joints.
Other dampers, such as wall dampers, are possible but not shown. The damper must be connected
to the existing structure and potentially the foundation. Installing dampers is similar to installing
braced frames. See Chapter 8 for detailed discussion on adding braced frames to a steel building
and Chapter 12 for adding a braced frame to a concrete building. Some damper devices and
orientations require out-of-plane bracing for stability, such as those shown in Figure 24.4-2.

Figure 24.4-1: Damper Alternatives for Rehabilitating an Existing Moment Frame

 Figure 24.4-2: Additional Damper Alternatives for Rehabilitating an Existing Moment
Frame

Analysis can require special expertise: The analytical and design effort for a rehabilitation
design involving damping can be more extensive than in fixed base rehabilitations. Time history
analysis, where at least the dampers are modeled nonlinearly, is common. Material properties
must be achievable with components in the marketplace and must account for material variability
from manufacturing, temperature, velocity, wear, aging, and other effects. Experience with this
type of work and the properties of the various vendor’s components and associated issues is
useful. Hanson and Soong (2001) is a comprehensive monograph that covers analysis of
buildings with supplemental energy dissipation devices, and it includes several design examples
of seismic rehabilitation using damping devices.
Aesthetic impact: Adding dampers looks very similar to adding a braced frame, with the
resulting visual and programmatic impacts. Some dampers or their connections can be
particularly visually obtrusive.
Checking the existing structure: When dampers are added to the structure, the loads they impart
locally must be considered in the design.
Proprietary issues: Most dampers available on the market are proprietary. Material properties,
testing histories, limitations and detailing considerations are obtained from the manufacturer.
Like seismic isolation components, the particular category of damper such as a fluid viscous
damper or a friction damper is usually selected early in the design because the analysis and
detailing can be significantly different between categories. There is also a patent regarding
certain techniques for connecting bracing and dampers to beams when sliding is employed.