Design of Metallic Dampers and Analysis Using MATLAB Program

Earthquakes are one of the major natural hazards to life on the earth and have affected countless areas on almost every continent. The damaged caused by earthquakes are mostly seen in man-made structures which are most of the time responsible for most of the causalities. Therefore, it is necessary that design of structures is done to resist earthquake forces, in order to reduce the loss of life. Passive control devices were developed earlier and have been used extensively in practice. Metallic dampers, one of the passive damping devices, dissipate seismic energy through in-elastic deformation of metals. It utilizes the yielding of metals as the dissipative mechanism. In the present study, characterization of ADAS (Added Damping Added Stiffness) type metallic damper is carried analytically and experimentally to understand cyclic behaviour. It is found that response of metallic damper is a function of its geometry and its mechanical characteristics of the metal. The primary factors affecting ADAS element behaviour are device’s elastic stiffness, yield strength and yield displacement. Attempt has been made to develop design procedure for ADAS type metallic damper in Indian Scenario. Designed damper behaviour is analysed by programming tool MATLAB obtaining solution of equation of motion for different time history data.