Dynamic response characterization and simplified analysis methods for viscoelastic dampers considering heat transfer

Abstract Viscoelastic (VE) dampers are sensitive to temperature, excitation frequency, and strain level. As they dissipate the kinetic energy from earthquake or wind‐induced structural vibrations, their temperature increases from the heat generated, consequently softening their VE materials and lowering their dynamic mechanical properties. Temperature increase can be significant for long‐duration loading, but can be limited by heat conduction and convection which depend on damper configuration. The writers analytically explored such effect on the six different dampers by using their previously proposed three‐dimensional finite‐element analysis method. Results provided better understanding of how heat is generated within the VE material, conducted and stored in different damper parts, and dispersed to the surrounding air. These results also led to characterization of both local (e.g., temperatures, properties, and strain energy density) and global (e.g., hysteresis loops, and stiffness) behavior of VE dampers, and provided a framework for a new simplified one‐dimensional (1D) modeling approach for time‐history analysis. This new proposed 1D method greatly improves the computation time of the previously proposed long‐duration method coupling fractional time‐derivatives VE constitutive rule with 1D heat transfer analysis. Unlike the previous method, it idealizes uniform shear strain and VE material property distributions for computational efficiency, but still simulating non‐uniform temperature distribution along the thickness direction of the VE material. Despite the approximations, it accurately predicts VE damper global responses.