Design and Retrofit of Multistory Frames with Elastic-Deformable Viscous Damping Braces

This paper provides an exhaustive treatment for the analysis of non-proportional damping structures equipped with elastically deformable viscous damping braces. A frequency domain approach is adopted for solving the equation of motion as a function of nondimensional parameters. Accounting for the brace flexibility, an optimal damping system is suggested in order to minimize the resonance peak of the top-story displacement response on the first vibration mode. The effect of variation of the dissipative bracing system is demonstrated not only in terms of provided equivalent viscous damping and maximum response, but also in terms of dominant frequency and mode shapes.