Experimental and theory study on mechanical property of a new viscous-elastic damper

A new viscous-elastic damper was invented in this paper. Experiments on the hysteretic property and low-cycle fatigue property of the viscous-elastic dampers with eight types (DS1~DS8) were performed. Based on the experimental data, mechanical properties, such as energy dissipation performance, parameter related performance and fatigue performance, were investigated in detail. A restoring force model of the viscous-elastic damper was proposed according to the Kelvin model and the reliability of the restoring force model was verified by comparative study between experiment and theory results. Results show that the invented viscous-elastic dampers have a good energy dissipation performance and a low-cycle fatigue performance. And the dampers also have a stable work performance and excellent tightness. The restoring force model based on Kelvin model can well reflect the working condition of the new viscous-elastic dampers and a good agreement on hysteretic curves between the experiment and theory can be found. The viscous-elastic dampers can provide damping and stiffness for structures to resist actions of external excitations and can be used as a displacement-limited protective device.