Performance based seismic design of building structural system with visco-elastic dampers

This paper aims at encouraging the extensive use of viscoelastic dampers in performance based seismic design of building structural systems and equipment. First part of the study describes how to construct an exact mechanical model of the damper of which load-deflection relation is both frequency and temperature dependent. Second part covers some practical applications. It is shown that, during even an intense earthquake ground motion, the damper enables either to keep buildings almost elastic or to keep them safe from the collapse at least, depending on how the owner and the designer want them to be. It is also shown that the damper can be effectively used to decrease the stress and the support resistance of a piping system subjected to seismic floor response of the building.