Experimental study and mechanical model of viscoelastic damping limb-like-structure device with coupling nonlinear characteristics

The harmful vibration of the building structure usually can lead to huge casualties and property losses, it is necessary to reduce and eliminate the detrimental effect through effective vibration control device. In this paper, the viscoelastic damping limb-like-structure (VE-LLS) device is proposed by combing the viscoelastic (VE) damper and the limb-like-structure (LLS) together, which possesses coupling nonlinear characteristic that is benefit for improving the vibration control performance for building structure. Firstly, the property experiment is carried out to study mechanical performance of the proposed VE-LLS device, and the results show that the proposed device has better energy dissipation capacity and stability, the final failure mode of the device usually is caused by destruction of the VE damper. Next, the hysteretic curves of experimental results are plotted and discussed, and equivalent stiffness Ke and equivalent damping Ce are calculated to study the nonlinear influence of geometrical parameters on mechanical properties of the proposed device. Then, the mechanical model of the proposed device is established by considering the viscoelastic force and the friction force together. Lastly, the experimental and numerical results are compared and discussed together, and the results indicate that the established mechanical model has excellent accuracy and can precisely describe mechanical property of the proposed device.