Experimental and Theoretical Study of Viscoelastic Dampers with Different Matrix Rubbers

Viscoelastic (VE) dampers are one of the most popular structural control devices, and serious efforts have been undertaken to develop their availability in civil engineering. However, the performance of VE dampers is dependent on the energy dissipation properties of VE materials. In this study, several kinds of VE materials based on different matrix rubbers were developed, and tests on VE dampers based on nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) matrix and silicone rubber (SR) matrix were carried out. The results indicate that NBR matrix VE dampers have a high energy dissipation capacity, whereas SR matrix VE dampers have stable performance under different working conditions. To clarify the mechanical properties of VE dampers based on NBR and SR matrices, the equivalent higher-order fractional derivative model, which takes into account the effects of temperature and frequency simultaneously, is proposed. The numerical results using this model are in accord with experimental results.