RESPONSE CONTROL BY DAMPER DEVICES OF
HIGH-RISE BUILDING UNDER LONG-PERIODGROUND MOTION
Miguel Augusto DIAZ FIGUEROA1
MEE07150

Supervisor: Taiki Saito2

ABSTRACTThis study attempts to apply Performance Curve method to design dampers for high-rise buildings inorder to reduce the response under long-period ground motions; and to analyze the effects of responsecontrol of the high-rise buildings using damper devices.
In order to analyze the dynamic response, the target high-rise building is a 37-story building
located in Tokyo; and five different earthquakes, namely BCJ-L2, El Centro 50 kine, Kobe, Osaka andNagoya are used. Likewise, the target high-rise building is modeled as multi-degree of freedom(MDOF) systems, and to perform its dynamic response using damper devices, such as steel, oil andviscous dampers, the software called MDOF-OS was modified by the writer based on the software
coded by Dr. Taiki Saito. Its algorithm is mainly based on Operator Splitting (OS) method because ofits good accuracy and stability for large time integration steps. In this analysis, the target high-risebuilding without dampers reaches the maximum response under Nagoya earthquake because of being
the strongest long-period ground motion.
Finally, steel and oil dampers are designed using a Performance Curve method developed by
Prof. Kasai to be added into the target high-rise building in order to reach a good seismic performance
under Nagoya earthquake. And a comparison among these dampers is carried out in order to analyze
the effect of response control.
Keywords: High-rise building, long-Period ground motion, passive control, Performance curve
method.

INTRODUCTION
In the last decades, the response of high-rise buildings caused by long-period ground motions has beena subject of research, considering that responses of structures with long natural period, such as highrise buildings become very large in case of long-period ground motions; it is desirable to control theresponse of these structures to avoid damages and insure the life safety. In that sense, the responsecontrol must especially be applied on existing high-rise buildings, and these measures must also betaken in account in the design of new high-rise buildings.
In order to control the response of these structures, many types of passive dampers devices
were developed in Japan, these devices are connected to the frame to dissipate the seismic input
energy, therefore reducing the kinetic energy and vibration of the building.
Prof. Kasai developed and proposed a simple and useful design procedure for buildings withdampers, so-called Performance Curve method, which is described in the Manual for Design andConstruction of Passively-Controlled Buildings published by Japan Society of Seismic Isolation (JSSI).
However, few researches of application of response control devices to high-rise building to solve theaforementioned problem of high-rise buildings under long-period ground motions were carried out.
12Japan Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation (CISMID)
Chief Research Engineer of Building Research Institute (BRI)

1

DATA
Target High-rise Building
The target high-rise building is located in Chuo-ku, Tokyo; and its construction end was in 1991. The
total height is 119 m, compose by 40 floors, as is shown in Figure 1. In order to model this building,one basement and two minor upper floors are neglected, so that it is supposed as 37-story building, asis shown in Figure 3, with a total height of 108.9 m. On the other hand, this structure is symmetric inplan as is shown in Figure 2.
Fundamental
Period:T = 1.973 s

37 th - F
36 th - F

Dampingratio:
ho = 0.03

ith - F

2nd - F
1 st - F

Figure 1. Building Photo

Figure 2. Plan view

Figure 3. 37-DOF System

Input Earthquake Ground Motions
Table 1. Summary of used Input Earthquake ground motions
Earthquake

Type earthquake

Characteristics

BCJ-L2El Centro50 kine
Kobe

Design earthquake

Observed earthquake

Osaka

Long-period ground motion

NagoyaLong-period ground motion

Building Center of Japan (Level 2). Artificial wave.
1940 Centro Earthquake, NS component. Amplified toobtain a maximum velocity of 50 cm/s.
1995 Hyogoken Nanbu Earthquake, NS component.
An artificial wave set in NS component, simulated for
Nankai Earthquake.
Artificial wave set in EW component, simulated for
Tokai-Tonankai Earthquake.

Design earthquake

Velocity Response Spectrum
h=3%

400

BCJ-L2EL CENTRO 50
KOBEOSAKANAGOYA

350

Velocity (cm/s)

Since this study attempts to analyze the effectof damper devices into the target high-risebuilding, Nagoya earthquake is selected
because of being the strongest long-period
ground motion.
Long-period ground motions greatly
influence structures with long fundamental
period, approximately from 2 up to 6 s, as isshown in velocity spectra comparison as isshown in Figure 4.

300
250
200
150
100
500012345678910Period (s)Figure 4. Comparison among earthquake groundmotions2THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
Performance Curve Method
A damping structure controls any displacement, velocity
and acceleration response of a building by means ofstiffness and viscosity added by dampers attached to themain resisting frame when an earthquake occurs. The
performance curves are the visualized response conditions
in a single-mass system. The frame stiffness has been used
as a reference for all the stiffness values and to plot theperformance curves as is shown in Figure 5.
The displacement reduction ratio, Rd, is the initial
parameter to find out the optimum amount of dampers into
the performance curve and it is defined by the following
Equation:
Rd =Maximum target drift

Figure 5. Performance curve

Maximum response drift

Design of dampers
A general procedure to design dampers is described as follows:---

Target performance and design conditions.
Calculating the displacement reduction ratio.
Plotting the damping performance curve.
Determining the required damper scales for each story. The amount of dampers from theperformance curve is obtained to equivalent single degree of freedom system; therefore the actual
amount of dampers is obtained by means of a linear proportional distribution
Modelalong MDOF system.
Converting to the damper axial values and determining the specifications.
The MDOF system assumes a horizontal displacement of dampers; thereby aconversion of forces and displacements from horizontal to diagonal direction
using the incidence angle is done in order to design dampers at each floor.
Designing dampers.
Ldi

A'diA'diAdi
ØD2

ØD1

ØDt
ØD3
Lt0.5Lri

Li - LriLi

L10.5Lri

LbL

Figure 6. Steel damper used in this study.
(Buckling Restrained Damper)

Figure 7. Oil damper device used in thisstudy.

3RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Dynamic Response of the Target High-rise Building without Damper Devices
The maximum values of dynamic response under the above earthquake ground motions are shown inFigure 8 and 9, and summarized in Table 6 which shows that the maximum response is obtained underNagoya earthquake, being the maximum drift 1/80 rad at the 14-floor and the ductility factor is 1.594.
Maximum Response

Maximum Response

3525

BCJ-L2EL CENTRO 50
KOBE
OSAKA
NAGOYA

30
25

Story i30

Story i35

BCJ-L2EL CENTRO 50
KOBEOSAKANAGOYA

201520151010550000.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.01

0.012

00.014

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

Shear Force (t)Drift (rad)Figure 8. Maximum Story drifts

Figure 9. Maximum Story shear forces

Table 2. Maximum values of dynamic response under earthquake ground motions
Earthquake groundmotionBase shear force

Maximum driftt

rad

BCJ-L2El Centro 50
Kobe
Nagoya
Osaka

6400
5520
6400
6400
3290

1/94 at 26-F
1/153 at 26-F
1/129 at 31-F
1/80 at 14-F
1/284 at 15-F

Ductility (μ)
1.346
0.836
1.195
1.594
0.423

Design of dampers
The maximum story drift for designing high-rise buildings is 1/100 rad, and the obtained maximum
story drift under Nagoya earthquake is 1/80 rad; therefore the reduction ratio, Rd, is 0.80. The obtained
results for steel and oil dampers are shown in Table 3 and 4, respectively.
Steel dampers
Table 3. Specifications of steel dampers devices used in the designTypeA
B
C
D
E
E'L

Lr

Ldmm

mm

mm

4066
4066
4066
4066
4066
5327

407
407
407
407
407
533

3253
3253
3253
3253
3253
4262

4

Plate
PL-22x250
PL-28x300
PL-30x320
PL-32x380
PL-38x400
PL-38x400

Ad

A'dcm2

cm2

55.0
84.0
96.0
121.6
152.0
152.0

137.5
210.0
240.0
304.0
380.0
380.0

Oil dampers
Table 4. Specifications of oil dampers used in the design
Fdy
KN
1500
1000
1500
1000

Type
A
B
C
D

Cd
KN.s/cm
1350
900
1350
900

Vd
cm/s
900
300
900
300

Lmm
4066
4066
5327
5327

L1mm
3000
3000
3000
3000

Lbmm
1066
1066
2327
2327

37

37

34

34

31

31

28

28

25

25

22

22

Story-iStory-i

The design of steel and oil damper was carried out and the arrangements of dampers at each floor are
shown in Figure 10 and 11, respectively.

19161916

131310107744110

12345678A

Number of steel dampers

9BC

101112D

EE'024681012

Number of Oil dampers

Figure 10. Arrangement of steel dampers

1416A

B

1820

C

D

Figure 11. Arrangement of oil dampers

Dynamic Response of the Target High-rise Building with Damper Devices
Maximum Response

Maximum Response
No dampers

35

No dampers

30

Steel dampers

30

Steel dampers

25

Oil dampers

25

Oil dampers

Story-iStory-i

35

201520151010550000.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.01

0.012

00.014

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

Shear force (t)Drift (rad)Figure 12. Comparison among maximum drifts

Figure 13. Comparison among maximum forces

As was supposed, the adding of dampers reduces considerably the dynamic response under Nagoya
earthquake (the strongest long-period ground motion) in both cases, adding steel and oil dampers. The
obtained maximum drift at the fourteen-floor is reduced closely to the target maximum drift, thesedifferences are in 8% and 10% under the maximum target drift, 1/100 rad, as is shown in Table 5, withthe adding of steel and oil dampers, respectively; these differences demonstrate the high control on5

buildings. Also, ductility factors are reduced in 19% and 24% adding steel and oil dampers,
respectively.
Table 5. Summary of maximum response before and after adding dampers
Condition

Base shear-forcet

Maximum driftrad

Ductility (μ)

No dampers
Steel dampers
Oil dampers

6400
8910
7430

1/80 at 14-F
1/109 at 14-F
1/114 at 14-F

1.594
1.293
1.216

CONCLUSION
In this study, an analytical investigation on passive response control using steel, oil and viscousdampers has been presented in order to analyze their effects on an actual high-rise building in Tokyo.
The target high-rise building without dampers reaches the maximum response under Nagoya
earthquake because of being long-period ground motion. It verifies that buildings with long
fundamental period, approximately from 2 up to 6 seconds, are greatly influenced by long-period
ground motions.
The design of dampers was carried out for Steel and Oil dampers using Performance Curvemethod developed by Prof. Kasai. The responses under long-period ground motion after adding theabove dampers satisfy the design safety requirement.
This procedure can be applied in general for high-rise buildings to design dampers in order toreduce the response under long-period ground motions, which are supposed to greatly influence thesestructures. This allows us avoiding severe damaged on high-rise buildings and insure the life safety,
which are the desired targets in the design.

REFERENCES
Chopra A., 2007. Prentice Hall, Inc., New Jersey.
Higashino M. & Okamoto S., 2006. Taylor and Francis Group, New York.
JSSI Manual, 2004. Japan Society of Seismic Isolation (JSSI), Tokyo (in Japanese).
Kasai K., Fu Y. & Watanabe A., 1998. Journal of Structural Engineering.
Kasai K. & Kibayashi M., 2004. Proc., 13WCEE.
Kibayashi M., Kasai K. &, Tsuji Y., Kikuchi M., Kimura Y., Kobayashi T., Nakamura J. andMatsubsa Y., 2004. Proc., 13WCEE.
Tada M. & Pan P., 2006. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 2006.
Soda S., 2008. Lecture notes of International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering,
Building Research Institute.
Iiba M. & Inoue N., 2008. Lecture notes of International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake
Engineering, Building Research Institute.

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