Supplementary Damping - A New Concept in Earthquake Resistant Buildings

1. Introduction A major earthquake is the most extreme condition that a building may be required to survive during its lifetime. Incase buildings are unable to survive this natures might then the price to be paid can be colossal in terms of loss to lives and property. To survive this natures fury safely and surely also poses the greatest challenge to the architects and structural engineers. However the modern day computational power and the technological advances in the field of seismic protection have made the solution once considered un-surmountable a reality. Considerable testing both in the field and the laboratory coupled with quality research work has helped increase our understanding of how buildings behave and respond during earthquakes and other intense motions. This has led to newer approaches and methodologies towards designing safer structures. 2. Background The heightened seismic activity in and around the Indian sub-continent and the recent quakes in Kashmir and the low intensity temblors in Delhi, Gujarat and eastern India are a constant reminder that we are living in an active seismic belt. Awareness levels are growing and people today are becoming increasingly savvy about the seismic components of the buildings they live and work in. Also over the years the expectations of consumers has increased manifold, today many expect and demand that their building/s be designed to the highest possible standards. A decade ago most were satisfied with and wanted to prevent a total building collapse, today many are demanding buildings that are safe to stay and work in immediately after an quake. Important public buildings like hospitals and emergency command centers are being designed for full functionality even during a major earthquake. 3. Effect of Earthquake on Built Environment When an earthquake strikes it supplies a great amount of sudden energy to buildings and structures. The only way this energy can be absorbed by the building is by causing some damage. The damage could be classified into two kind, structural members and non-structural. The non-structural components are the window panes/ brick infill walls/ tiles/ false ceiling etc. and this type of damage does not threaten the structural integrity of the building, however, structural damage to columns, beams, shear walls and floor slabs is also caused by the cracking of concrete and elongation/yielding of steel. Effectively all energy absorbed is associated with some form of damage. When the damage in the structural members crosses a threshold level which can also be said to be the capacity of that building the building would collapse. Presently the designers are aiming to absorb all of the seismic energy through controlled yielding of steel and cracking of concrete so that the threshold danger level is not exceeded. The aim is to use the full capacity of the structure so as to prevent a total collapse. Even if the building does not collapse, the yielding of steel and cracks in concrete may cause the structure to be so badly damaged that the building would be unusable and subsequently condemned. 4. Highrise Buildings Population explosion has made highrises the order of the day as it is the only logical solution and way of accommodating the growing population within the boundaries of the cities. It is needless to emphasise that tall buildings are prone to larger movements and damage than low rise structures during earthquakes and as the number of people occupying a highrise at any given time is far greater so also the risk of collateral damage. Apart from ensuring structural safety during earthquakes highrises are giving the engineers another cause of concern i.e. mitigation of wind induced vibrations that cause occupant discomfort. Excessive floor accelerations which are caused by relatively frequent strong wind motions can render a building unserviceable for reasons of occupant discomfort. Humans can perceive accelerations greater than one hundredth of that of acceleration due to gravity. This effect is more pronounced in tall slender buildings and for the building to qualify for serviceability the dynamic response of the structure to wind induced vibrations needs to be reduced. To overcome these effects the common approach is that of increasing the stiffness of the lateral load resisting members. This has two major disadvantages which can lead to further complications and occasionally degradation in building design: (a) Increased structural costs due to additional steel and concrete for making the building stiffer and

(b) Increased stiffness would imply that the building now would attract higher seismic forces than before. Thus the vulnerability of the building for seismic loading becomes higher which is a cause of concern. 5. Building Properties Affecting the Lateral Load Resisting Structural System Earthquakes induce very intense lateral motion and thereby subject the columns and shear walls of buildings to excessive forces. When there is a situation that lateral load resisting members cannot handle these forces they damage and this can lead to a total building collapse. To prevent this kind of damage it is extremely important to reduce the dynamic lateral response of the building. This dynamic lateral response has three main governing factors to include mass, stiffness and damping and based on these three contributing factors there exist three separate methodologies to control the dynamic response. Each of the approaches mentioned below uses one of the three structural properties of the building however in practice the designer may choose a hybrid solution and target two or sometimes even all three approaches simultaneously. Mass centric approach. Greater the building mass, higher will be the seismic demand. Thus one of the ways to improve seismic performance is to reduce the overall building weight. This can be achieved either by reducing building height or by reducing the weight of non-structural members like infill walls. However for very tall buildings reduction in mass would also imply that wind induced vibrations may generate acceleration levels that may render a building unserviceable due to occupant discomfort. Stiffness centric approach. Stiffness can be added to a building by adding shear walls, jacketing of beams and columns, addition of new columns, addition of steel braces etc. Higher the stiffness of a building higher is going to be the forces acting on it. However a building requires some basic minimum stiffness for its lateral load resisting mechanism to be effective; however excessive use of shear walls will attract larger earthquake forces that can cause failure. This is because a stiff structure would now have to deal with much higher forces than if it was moderately stiff. Damping centric approach. Damping is a property of a structure by virtue of which it can absorb/dissipate induced energy without undergoing structural damage. In other words incase a building has higher damping levels it will sway less thereby implying that it will damage less. Also higher the damping lower are the earthquake forces as most of the energy is absorbed as a result of the damping property. 6. Intrinsic Damping in Reinforced Concrete Structures RCC structures are considered to possess 5% inherent damping whereas steel structures are believed to have 2% damping. However actual site measurements have shown that intrinsic damping of buildings is far more complicated and variable than the generic figures of 2 and 5%. Damping reduces as height increases and also the damping levels greatly differ from one building to another. For building upto 50 meters in height the measured intrinsic damping was seen to vary from 1 to 5% whereas for very tall structures greater than 200 meters in height the intrinsic damping was just 0.5 to 1%. What is of greater concern is that this intrinsic damping cannot be accurately known or calculated at the design stage. The only way to tell the correct damping is by physical testing and measurements after the building is constructed. This uncertainty in the damping levels can prove fatal under seismic conditions. To prove the case in point if in actual the damping is 1%, where as the designer has designed the building assuming 5% damping then the structure so designed will not be able to perform to the expected standards in the event of an earthquake. This emphasises the thought process that the designers should assume a conservative damping value while designing else it is almost certain that even with computer aided analysis and design the buildings designed would be unsafe. 7. Supplementary Damping in Buildings Additional engineered and accurate damping can be very easily added to buildings by installing certain mechanical devices called dampers. Dampers can provide damping upto 25-30% of the critical, thereby ensuring that the building will perform very well in seismic conditions as also strong winds in case of very tall buildings. Dampers act as shock absorbers and energy dissipaters during any type of motion and thus prevent the building from damage. By using dampers the designer is able to overcome the uncertainties of low intrinsic damping and this helps in predicting the dynamic response accurately. By adding additional damping the stiffness and building mass can also be reduced thereby ensuring that the building is now subjected to lower seismic forces. The advantages of additional damping is reduced building sway thus preventing damage to structural and nonstructural components, reduced design forces as much of the energy is dissipated by the dampers and the uncertainty in the level of intrinsic damping is overcome through engineered supplementary damping.

Supplementary damping is also the most efficient and cost effective way to achieve energy dissipation in buildings. This would inadvertently mean decreasing the energy dissipation demand on the structural components i.e. beams/columns/slabs thereby increasing the survivability of the building structure. Dampers are mechanical devices that look some what like huge shock absorbers and their function is to absorb and dissipate the energy supplied by the ground movement during an earthquake so that the building remains unharmed. Whenever the building is in motion during an earthquake tremor or excessive winds, dampers help in restricting the building from swaying excessively and thereby preventing structural damage. The energy absorbed by dampers gets converted into heat which is then dissipated harmlessly into the atmosphere. Dampers thus work to absorb earthquake shocks ensuring that the structural members i.e. beam and columns remain unharmed. There are four types of dampers i.e. Viscoelastic, Friction, Metallic Yield and Fluid Viscous. (a) Traditional Viscoelastic dampers are stacked plates separated by inert polymer materials. They have proved to be problematic over a varying temperature range and have not achieved much success in practical applications due to the somewhat undesirable added spring effect of these devices. There are no manufacturers that manufacture purely Viscoelastic damper. (b) Friction dampers consist of sliding steel plates and work on the principal that when two metal surfaces slide, friction heat is produced and energy gets dissipated. These types of dampers are susceptible to corrosion and cold welding which has a direct effect on the yielding threshold. There are also some associated maintenance problems. (c) Metallic dampers consist of multiple steel plates which yield when a threshold force is reached. In other words these dampers become active only after a trigger force is crossed. As the metal yields, it dissipates energy. These dampers are required to be replaced after every seismic event. Over a period of time they have also not been able to catch the momentum as the technology in the other damper field has fast progressed. (d) Fluid viscous dampers have existed for a long time and were developed and used in the aerospace industry. After the end of the cold war era the US government decided to make this technology available for civilian applications and the seismic dampers are as a direct result of that. Fluid viscous dampers are fluid filled metal cylinders with pistons and work like shock absorbers. They have proved to be the most superior of the lot both for seismic and wind applications. One of there biggest advantage is that they can be modeled to great accuracy and therefore the response of structures using them can be accurately studied. They absorb energy at all frequency ranges of the earthquake and also do not need to be replaced after an earthquake. Generally the life of the fluid viscous damper will be as long as the life of the structure it is protecting. They also have a great flexibility in design and can be configured to protect against an earthquake of any magnitude. They can be installed both on new and existing structures. 8. Conclusion Intrinsic damping is one of the fundamental properties of buildings and has a great role to play in evaluating the building response during earthquakes. Higher levels of damping are greatly desired for building safer structures. With present technological advances intrinsic damping can be supplemented by addition of mechanical devices. Dampers can be installed in existing and new buildings with ease and therefore they are a extremely versatile tool in the hands of designers for new and retrofit projects. Dampers require minimal civil construction works and on most occasions the building would be in use when dampers are being installed. Buildings using dampers can target a higher protection standard of Life Safety or Immediate Occupancy.