A design method of viscoelastic damper parameters based on the elastic-plastic response reduction curve

The traditional design method of the elastic response reduction curve (ERRC) was used to design the parameters of the viscoelastic damper (VED), where the plastic behavior of the primary structure is neglected. Considering the structural plastic behavior, in this study, a direct design method is proposed to obtain the parameters of VEDs based on the elastic-plastic response reduction curve (EPRRC), which can illustrate the relationship between damper parameters and the response reduction effect in the elastic-plastic stage. First, the ERRC is developed to the EPRRC, and the differences between them are compared using the displacement and acceleration response difference ratios, which demonstrate an overestimated response reduction effect of VEDs in the elastic-plastic stage using the ERRC. Then, the corresponding design procedures are given based on the EPRRC by referring to the direct displacement-based design theory. Finally, a benchmark model is used to illustrate the effectiveness of this proposed design method by conducting a time history analysis. The analysis results indicate that the target story drift of the structure can be satisfied under different earthquake intensities using VEDs. Thus, based on this study, the development of the EPRRC can be considered worthwhile, and the proposed design method of VED parameters is easy to implement and is effective.