A design procedure for buildings equipped with energy dissipation devices using nonclassical damping and iso-performance curves

Abstract

This article describes a design procedure for elastic buildings equipped with linear and nonlinear energy dissipating devices. The objective is to achieve a design that responds to a target building performance following a simple and robust step‐by‐step algorithm. The proposed procedure identifies first the modal significance of key design performance indicators and controls the modal properties by solving a singular two‐parameter eigenvalue problem. For that purpose, a new modal significance metric is proposed, and a target frequency shift and damping ratio for the complete structure are obtained from the so‐called iso‐performance design curves. The design algorithm employs linear‐equivalent stiffness and damping properties, which are then transformed into parameters characterizing inelastic force‐deformation constitutive models corresponding to physical devices. The design algorithm leads to an optimal damper distribution corresponding to the minimum global amount of supplemental equivalent damping needed to achieve a maximum modal perturbation. The design procedure is first demonstrated using a five‐story building example and then a real and complex 22‐story free‐plan building with two towers of rhomboid‐shape plan with a very singular dynamic behavior.