Numerical evaluation of a novel passive variable friction damper for vibration mitigation

Abstract

This study assesses the performance of a novel passive variable friction damper (PVFD) at mitigating wind-and seismic-induced vibrations. The PVFD consists of two friction plates upon which a cam profile modulates the normal force as a function of its rotation. A unique feature of the PVFD is its customizable shape, yielding a customizable friction hysteresis. The objective of the study is to assess the benefits of crafting the friction behavior to satisfy motion criteria. This is done numerically on two example buildings: a 5-story structure subjected to seismic loads, and a 20-story structure subjected to non-simultaneous seismic and wind loads. A probabilistic performance-based design procedure is introduced to select the optimum cam configurations throughout each building under the design loads. After that, numerical simulations are conducted to compare their performance against that of two equivalent damping schemes: viscous dampers and passive friction dampers. Results show that customization of the hysteresis behaviors throughout a structure is necessary to yield optimal performance. Also, the PVFD outperforms the other damping schemes for wind mitigation by yielding a more stable response in terms of lower accelerations over the entire wind event. Under seismic loads, all three damping schemes exhibited comparable performance, but the PVFD yielded a significantly more uniform drift for the 20-story building.

Integrating structural control, health monitoring, and energy harvesting for smart cities

“…They usually contribute to increasing the structural damping, absorbing the structure's kinetic energy, and dissipating it through different mechanisms. Passive devices include metallic yield dampers, friction dampers, viscous fluid dampers, and viscoelastic dampers (Barzegar et al, 2020;Housner et al, 1997). Tuned mass damper (TMD) is a passive device comprising of a mass attached to the main structure using a T A B L E 1 Overview of the literature in the field of SC, SHM, energy harvesting, integrated systems, and related methodologies Wang, Zhou, & Lu, 2018).…”

Friction mechanism and experimental investigation of the response‐amplified friction damper

“…Typical rotational FDs, which make use of the friction between multiple plates in hinges, 6 can be easily adopted in seismic retrofitting of existing frame buildings. For example, the rotational FD can effectively prevent the collapse of soft‐first‐story buildings 7 .…”

An equivalent approach for modelling butterfly-hysteresis passive variable friction damper

“…However, without a high initial static force that builds up sufficiently large hysteretic loop at which FD starts sliding to dissipate energy, there will not be such large damping capacity it can supply to structure as an impactful advantage of FD, whereas large initial static force does stiffen global structure and consequently induces large floor acceleration [16]. Namely, under frequent dynamic loading case with low or moderate intensity, it rarely plays the role of dissipating energy, but inversely induces larger floor acceleration instead [17].…”

“…Barzegaret al [17], Downeyet al [21], Downeyet al [22] employed the LuGre friction model to simulate the dynamic behavior of PVFD, which accounts the stick-slip motion along with Stribeck effect. The effectivity and simplicity of LuGre model for modelling behavior of PVFD is evidenced in research [22], which is also highly numerically adjustable to fit wider parametric range of PVFD products [17]. However, there are 3 reasons that the efficiency and practicability of LuGre model is not widely adopted in civil engineering practice.…”

“…Even LuGre model is experimentally demonstrated as capable to simulate more explicit friction behavior considering memory-dependent mechanism beyond Coulomb's friction model [23], but the need of reaching such depth of analytical accuracy is seldom called in civil engineering practice unlike aerospace ones, namely, it is an expensive compromise to induce a series of unnecessary impacts such as rate-dependency, multiple experimental parameter-determining cycles and furtherly repetitive parametric optimization process, only just for simulating the dynamic behavior of PVFD. To view wider, Barzegar et al [17] conducted numerical modelling and analysis via a way to highly simplify a benchmark building into a lumped-mass shear stand, so that enabled the application of LuGre model achieved in pure coding environment. Zhou and Peng [19] have made use of ANSYS (generic FEA software) to simulate the explicit physical behavior of PVFD, yielded hysteresis matches the one from a benchmark building equipped by PVFD but modelled using program IDARC that is developed in University of Buffalo, which is mainly for academic use.…”