Dampers

What Is a Dampening Structure?

•A dampening structure has dampers incorporated in its framework

that absorb seismic energy. The dampers reduce swaying and
improve safety and functionality during earthquakes.

Absorbing Seismic Energy

•Dampening systems help to keep high-rise buildings safe during

earthquakes.
•Installed on every floor of the building, they absorb seismic
energy to help stabilize the building.
 Advantages of Dampening Structure

•Because seismic energy is absorbed during an earthquake, the

dampers themselves are the first to yield, making it easy to
restore the building after a large earthquake strikes.

• Also, because shaking is reduced, the furniture and equipment

inside the building are less likely to be disrupted, thus helping to
maintain functionality and improve livability.
 Highly Effective in High-rise Buildings

• Base Isolation systems are designed for low- and mid-rise

buildings

• dampening systems are designed for high-rise buildings of 10

floors or more.

• These systems can be used on any type of structure, but they

are particularly effective in steel-frame structures.
• Categorization by Damper types

• Friction damper : Utilize frictional forces to dissipate energy

• Historical Damper : Utilize the deformation of metal
elements within the damper.
seismic energy is absorbed after the steel material in the dampers
reaches its yield point
• Viscous damper : Utilize the forced movement (orificing) of
fluids within the damper
seismic energy is absorbed through viscous resistance.

• Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) : This uses the concept of inertia

(pendulum dampers)
Categorization by Installation method

There are two ways to use dampers:

1. To install dampers to absorb seismic energy in the
framework of individual buildings. (at every floor)

2. To use dampers to connect two buildings that have

different vibration periodicities (dampening frame
structure).
 Friction damper
How it works ??
•When an external force excites a frame structure the girder starts to
displace horizontally due to this force.
• The damper will follow the motion and the central plate will rotate
around the hinge.
• The horizontal plates will rotate in opposite direction to the central
plate because of the tensile forces in the bracing elements. When the
applied forces are reversed, the plates will rotate in opposite way.
•The damper dissipates energy by means of friction between the
sliding surfaces
First Ancient Temple in Japan
In collaboration with Takenaka Corp.

Hondo Building Yaguriji Temple

Dampers installed in the space under the floorboards

 Second Ancient Temple in Japan
In collaboration with Takenaka Corp.

Taishi-Do Building Yaguriji Temple

•Wooden structures are safer ,
• as during earthquake they shake & absorb energy by
friction generated between the connection that can slide on
each other
•Pagodas are safer from this view point.
 Historical Dampers
•When steel and other ductile types of material deform, they
absorb vibration energy

• Steel with a low-yield-point which deforms much more easily

than ordinary steel and is able to absorb much more energy, is
used in these dampers.

• Unbonded brace dampers

• Precast concrete internal wall dampers

• Eccentric K-type brace-panel dampers.

 Unbonded Brace Dampers

• These dampers feature steel frames with cross-shaped cores made

of low-yield-point steel, encased in steel-fiber-reinforced concrete.
• Since the steel frames do not come in contact with the concrete
casings, a compressed contraction effect takes place.

Highly Efficient Energy Absorption

Because the entire cross-section of the brace deforms uniformly, the
brace can absorb energy very efficiently.
Versatile Design
The brace's rigidity and strength can be freely set by adjusting its
cross section.
 Eccentric K-type Brace Panel Dampers

•Low-yield-point steel is used for the panel

zone (web of beam) of the eccentric brace.
•The panel zone absorbs seismic energy when
it yields through shearing
•These dampers are activated by slight
changes in the shape of the building and are
highly effective in controlling vibration.
Can Be Used to Protect Existing Buildings

Through external frame reinforcement and other techniques, these

dampers offer an effective means of seismically strengthening
existing buildings.

•Their simple structure is also highly cost-effective.

 Precast Concrete Internal Wall Dampers
•Braces made of low-yield-point steel are
placed inside precast concrete walls. Since
the braces do not come in contact with the
concrete walls, a compressed contraction
effect takes place.
Used Effectively in Boundary Walls
Because this method permits the use of
thin walls, it can be used not only around
the core of the building but also in
boundary walls within residences and
hotels, thus increasing the number of
places where dampers can be installed and
providing greater freedom in building
design. Precast concrete walls can also be
used directly for the interior surface,
which helps to lower costs.
Viscous Dampers
Viscous dampers absorb seismic energy through viscous
resistance.
Oil Dampers:
Seismic energy is absorbed by the difference in pressure generated
on the two sides of the damper orifice.

Sensitive Response
Appropriate dampening for anything from small to large
amplitudes can be achieved.
Damper Atatürk International Airport Terminal
Istanbul, Turkey

The new $300 million International

Terminal at Istanbul's Atatürk
Airport is a massive, 2.5 million
square foot building which serves
as the port of entry for 14 million
international air passengers to
Turkey each year.

•The main feature of the terminal is the

820ft (250m) by 740ft (225m) pyramidal roof space frame with
triangular skylights.
•This delicate roof structure is supported by 130 Friction Pendulum
TM bearings, placed between the roof frame and the concrete columns
that rise 22ft (7m) above the departure level.
The bearings protect the delicate roof glass, glass curtain
walls, and the cantilever columns in the event of a
magnitude 8 earthquake.
They help ensure the safety of the airport passengers and
access for emergency response teams following a major
earthquake.
 Seahawks Football Stadium
Seattle, Washington

The new, open-air

football/soccer stadium in
Seattle, Washington, uses
Friction Pendulum TM
bearings to protect the long
span truss roof from damage
during an earthquake.

•These cylindrical bearings are located at the top of each of the four
roof support towers, and accommodate seismic and thermal
movements in the long direction of the truss roof.

•Each bearing supports 3 million pounds of vertical load. The

bearings were activated during the Nisqually, Washington,
Earthquake which occurred on February 28, 2001
 Tuned Mass Damper (TMD)
•For the John Hancock Building in
Boston, it was decided that a special
device was needed to stop the building
from moving so much.
• The idea was to place a large
concrete block on the top floor. The
block was placed on a smooth surface
lubricated with oil.
• The block was linked to the building
by a special spring. When the building
would move to the left, the block would
slide to the right and counter the
motion.
Citicorp Building.
•This uses the concept of inertia.
•The block moves in the opposite direction of the building but at the
same frequency.
•The spring is designed so that the block will slide back and forth at
the same pace at the building, in resonance.
• But in this case, resonance is used in good way because the block
does not move with the building to amplify the motion but instead
moves in the opposite direction to oppose the motion and stop the
building in its tracks.
•This device is called a Tuned Mass Damper (TMD), because it is
in tune with the building

•The first two devices like this were installed in the Citicorp
Building in New York and the John Hancock Building in Boston
in the 1970’s. The technology soon spread to Japan where it now is
used quite often
 Tuned Sloshing Dampers (TSD)

•Instead of using a big heavy block,

huge tanks of water may also be
used.
•The water will slosh in the opposite
direction as the building and oppose
the motion in the same way as the
TMD.
•For this reason, the tanks are called
Tuned Sloshing Dampers (TSD) or
Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLD).

• Once again, they are tuned to the same natural frequency as the
building. The amount of the water in the tank will determine the
frequency of the water’s motion.
 Hotel Cosima in Japan

• Thus, the correct amount of water is chosen so that the tank has
the same frequency as the building. A device like this is installed
in the Hotel Cosima in Japan.
 • Soon, the Japanese, in the
1990’s, learned that these
same devices could perform
even better with a little help.

•If the block moves back and forth like a pendulum, it can work
even better and more efficiently if a little person adjusts the speed
and frequency of its motion.

•With the TMD, the block moves side to side but it takes a while to
get going. Think about a swing. When you first start out, you don’t
swing very high. Then after a while, you can get yourself really
going.
•The TMD is most effective when it is moving back and forth a
lot
• but it takes a while to get to that point, just like with a swing. One
way to get there faster is to have someone push you.

•That is what this little man does to the device. He pushes the big
mass as needed. Because of its helper, the device is called an Active
Mass Damper or AMD.

• Of course a little elf isn’t really helping, it’s more like a robot arm
moving the block. But this picture gives you an idea.
• There are many of these devices installed in Japan.

• They are expensive and hi-tech but have done a great job in
helping the buildings not to dance even under the fierce attacks of
earthquakes.

• Two of the devices in the Shinjuku Park Tower and the Landmark
Tower are shown.

• These devices are massive machines that move back and forth on
the top floor of the building with the help of robot arms called
actuators.

• The Shinjuku Tower has 3 of these, one in each tower of the

hotel.
Landmark Tower. Shinjuku Park Tower.
 Damper-Studded Diamonds in Mexico City Raises Bar on
Earthquake Resistance

-Latin America's Tallest Sports

Super-Efficient Building in seismic
Mexico City raises bar on
earthquake resistance

• Standing on seismic Mexico City's dry

central lake bed or "bowl of jello,"
where many buildings collapsed in
1985's magnitude 7.3 earthquake.

• But it becomes apparent that the $250-

million-plus Torre Mayor, which
officially opened seven days before, was
still standing without any scratch .
 Problem with Mexico City
• City is developed on a soil that is made up soil of dry lake.
•So Entire city is situated like a ‘Bowl Of Jelly’

The Strongest Possible earthquake..

&

The Weakest Possible Soil

 City is developed on a soil that is made up soil of dry lake.
•So Entire city is situated like a ‘Bowl Of Jelly’ around hard
rock

Output wave
Input wave

Soft soil

Hard rock

focus
27.6 x 15-
sq. m
structural
steel core
No of stories - 55
Total 98 dampers
Core – 74
Perimeter- 24 ( 12 + 12)
2668.8 KN dampers- core
dampers , each damper
5337.6 KN- diagonal dampers,
each damper
Foundation – mat on 1.5 m dia
& 55m long caissons
1 to 10 floor – steel column
encased in concrete
Dampers begin from 11th floor
•Core dampers
resist eq. along
N-S dirn.

•Perimeter
dampers resists
eq. along E-W
dirn.
• The 225-meter-tall office tower
sparkles with 98 damper-
studded, diamond-shaped super
diagonal bracing, architecturally
expressed on its perimeter
moment frame
• The engineer used proven
technology– fluid viscous
dampers and super diagonal
bracing within a perimeter
structural tube– to raise the bar on
seismic engineering and provide a
55-story building that resists
earthquake forces nearly four
times as efficiently as a
conventionally damped
building.
•The brilliance of the scheme is in the
configuration of structure.
•All four perimeter walls contain
superdiagonals configured as
diamonds, rather than Xs.
•Broad south and north faces contain
dampers, which resist seismic loads in
the east-west direction.
•Each elevation has four steel
diamonds, with 42-m legs.
•The diamonds overlap each other
vertically at their peaks and valleys to
form three smaller diamonds.
•Each small diamond has four, 1,200-
kip-( 5337.6 KN)capacity dampers, one
on each leg near the apex or valley.
 •The structure behaves as if there is a line of
dampers sandwiched between two vertical
megatrusses with undamped "zigzag" webs.

• Dampers between mega trusses rather than on

their diagonals "makes the dampers work
harder”

•A damped building is analogous to a human

body, where muscles, or dampers, protect
bones, or the skeleton, from breaking.

•Torre Mayor has extra muscle. In a quake, its top moves 0.6 m
less than a conventionally designed building
•If specific geometric arrangement is not used , then the
braces would be larger and the dampers would be three times
their diameter–so big they would not fit into the building.
•The primary reason for spending $4 million on a system of 98
dampers, including 74 in the core, was to provide a safer-than-
standard building
•The goal was to have a building that would offer greater creature
comfort, reduce panic attacks in a temblor and barely skip an
operational beat after a major quake.

•But the dampers nearly paid for themselves, says the

engineer, thanks to resultant economies in the steel and concrete
structure. For example, the tower used 18,000 metric tons of
steel instead of 23,000.
Safety has it rewards..!!
•The damper-structure configuration
is so unusual that Rahimian
patented it..

• Torre Mayor marks the first use of dampers for seismic

resistance in a perimeter frame

• Floor diaphragms, which connect the perimeter frame to a

27.6 x 15-m structural steel core, provide the stiffness that ensures
that all the elements, whether dampers, bracing or columns, respond
simultaneously and uniformly to a seismic event
• Maintenance workers will periodically inspect dampers and check
their oil content. They are expected to be engaged a maximum
seven or eight times every 50 years. They are tested, however, for
hundreds of cycles.
Torre Mayor raises the bar

"We are not as proud of the height as we are of the engineering,"

Says Martinez-Romero..
"It was not a matter of building the tallest
building in South America. .
The merit is …
Building the safest building…"
 The Taipei 101 Tower, Taiwan

•Height - 509.2 m. ( including the 60 m spire)

•Design force : Earthquake + Wind

•Designed Earthquake : Richter scale 10

•The Taipei 101 is located in the Hsinyi District of the city, the
rapid-growing “Manhattan” of Taipei.

•The region where it is built straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, an

arc of fault lines that erupt in earthquakes every decade or so. There
are also many typhoons in this region.
The Taipei 101 Tower, Taiwan:
Plan at
Level 10
Plan at level
32
 •The massive supporting pillars
are made of boxes of 80 mm
thick steel-plate, filled with
concrete.
•However, only steel is used
above the 62nd floor.
• There are 16 of these giant
columns to support the gravity-
load.
•There are many lateral braces
and moment-resisting frames
around the building perimeter.

•Wrapped around the super columns is a web of a ductile steel

framework designed to bend during an earthquake.
• The frames support the outward
slope of the building, making
possible the repeating inverted
pyramid shape.
• There is a dedicated mechanical
floor every eight floors, with
massive floor-high steel outrigger
trusses.
•These connect the columns in the
core to the super columns on the
perimeter, effectively widening the
building to help it resist overturning.

•In addition, the tower is supported

by 380 concrete-filled steel piles,
sunk into the soil to a depth of 80 m.
 • Core & outrigger
in harmony

•There are 8 of these

8 floors multi-story units,
matching a lucky
number in Chinese.

•Especially at the base,

the large built-up steel
columns slant outward
as they go down, which
has a beneficial effect in
resisting lateral forces.
 MEGASTRUCTURAL SYSTEM
Gravity Systems
•The tower superstructure is a steel
frame with ‘H’ shape steel beams
acting composite with the floor slab
through shear studs, and floor
concrete acting composite with
metal deck.
•Within the core, 16 columns are
located at the crossing points of four
lines of bracing in each direction.

•On the perimeter, up to the 26th floor, each of the four building faces
has two ‘super-columns,’ two ‘sub-super-columns,’ and two corner
columns.
•Each face of the perimeter
above the 26th floor has the
two ‘super-columns’ continue
upward.
•The‘super-columns’ and
‘sub-super-columns’ are steel
box sections, filled with
10,000 psi (68950 KN/m2)
•M70 ( 70 N/mm2) grade
concrete
• High performance
concrete on lower floors for
strength and stiffness up to
the 62nd floor.
•The balance of perimeter framing is a
sloping Special Moment Resisting
Frame (SMRF), a rigidly-connected
grid of stiff beams and H shape
columns which follows the tower’s
exterior wall slope down each 8 story
module

•At each setback level, gravity load is

transferred to ‘super-columns’
through a story-high diagonalized
truss in the plane of the SMRF.
•The topmost section of the building
above the 91st floor is much smaller
in plan. Its loadings transfer to the
core columns directly.
•For additional core stiffness, the
lowest floors from basement to the 8th
floor have concrete shear walls cast
between core columns in addition to
diagonal braces.
•From core to perimeter, outrigger
trusses occur at 11 locations
• Outriggers at 6 locations are one story
high, fitting in mechanical floors.
•The other 5 locations are double-
height, working with architectural
requirements.
•In plan, 16 outriggers occur on each
such floor.
•For the dual seismic system, an independent
Special Moment Resisting Frame (SMRF) is
provided on each building face.
•From basement to the 26th floor, the SMRF
consists of ductile steel beams framing
between ‘strong’ columns – the exterior
super-columns, exterior sub-super columns,
and corner columns.
•Above the 26th floor, only two exterior
super-columns continue to rise up to the 91st
floor, so the SMRF consists of 600 mm deep
steel wide flange beams and columns, with
columns sized to be significantly stronger
than beams for stability in the event of beam
yielding.
•Each 7-story of SMRF is carried by a
story-high truss to transfer gravity and
outrigger forces to the super-columns,
and to handle the greater story stiffness
of the core at outrigger floors.

•superstructure is composed of large

multi-story units, that are said to form an
architectural effect resembling a bamboo
shaft.
Lateral (Wind and Seismic) Systems :

•Lateral forces will be resisted through

a combination of braced frames in the
core, outriggers from core to perimeter,
‘super-columns’ and moment resisting
frames in the perimeter and other
selected locations.
•By relative stiffness, the core bracing
and outriggers carry most of the wind
force and seismic force. Tower lateral
systems are sized to limit tower story
drift under the 50 year design wind load
to an inter-story drift of h/200 at the
91st floor and below.
 Core
•On outer faces, middle bays have
‘chevron’ braces (inverted V’s) through
which the elevator lobby entrance passes.

• Side bays have single diagonals,

eccentric only where required to clear
minimum doorway requirements.

• On inner faces, middle bays are non-

braced (special moment frames are
provided) at office floors, to keep
elevator lobbies open and spacious.

Side bays have diagonal braces.

Pendulum damper
Vibrations are damped by suspending a massive steel ball, 6m
diameter weighing 606 tonnes; steel is a wonderfully dense material.
The ball is suspended from the 92 nd floor to 87th floor. i.e. 5 storey
high space
•It helps stabilize the building in case of strong winds and
earthquakes, through simple mechanics,

•when the building moves in a direction it swings in the

opposite direction reducing movement by 40%.
•The ball is in fact made from a stack of steel plates of varying
dimensions. It is connected to pistons which drive oil through small
holes, thus damping vibrations.
•In its final form both the ball and the eight high-strength
steel cables which cradle it, are painted gold. This is the
largest wind-damper on Earth.

•Tower's 60 m spire relies on other two smaller dampers to

relieve the nearly constant wind buffeting. Without this damping,
the vibration would lead to metal fatigue and failure within
decades.
• Because of space constraints and the need for a large mass, the
4 tonne dampers are placed on rails that fit around the interior
columns of the spire.
•The energy absorbed by the dampers in the spire is dissipated
into a system of springs beneath the mass
•The slight swinging of the pendulum system offsets much of the
wind-induced motion that would otherwise be experienced by
occupants..

•For very high winds, and for significant earthquakes, the

swinging of the pendulum is restrained at the bottom of the
sphere by a large steel pin 60 cm (2 ft) in diameter that engages
piston dampers in a surrounding restraint ring.
Thus Earthquake ..
teaches us ..

How to be Simple in configuration..

& Achieve the strength in simplicity…
But .. If
There are Complications …

Techniques are there BUT ..

At the Cost of
Increased Cost For ..
Safety.. Of mankind..
“Do Provide”