Estimating Equivalent Viscous Damping in Reinforced Concrete Buildings Responding To Earthquake Ground Motions

Abstract eng:
Use of constant damping ratio, often at 2% or 5% level of critical damping, is common in the design and analysis of reinforced concrete buildings. Using an empirical method that extracts both the capacity curve and the effective viscous damping from actual strong motion response data recorded in buildings, we show that the effective viscous damping ratio in low to mid-rise RC buildings responding at their dominant mode (equivalent of fundamental mode in linear systems) varies linearly with the inverse of the effective period. We demonstrate the method using acceleration records obtained in an actual 7-story RC building intensely shaken and damaged during earthquakes. The consequences of the observed variation of damping ratio versus the constant damping ratio that is assumed in the current practice of RC building design are discussed and illustrated using the 7-story RC building as a testbed.

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