EUROSTEEL 2014, September 10-12, 2014, Naples, Italy

RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEISMIC RESISTANT STEEL

STRUCTURES IN JAPAN
Kazuhiko Kasaia, Yuka Matsumotob, Satoshi Yamadaa, Tetsuo Yamashitac, and Yoshiaki Hisadac
a
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Structural Engineering Research Center, Japan
a
kasai@serc.titech.ac.jp, a naniwa@serc.titech.ac.jp
b
Yokohama National University, Faculty of Urban Innovation, Japan
b
yk-mtsmt@ynu.ac.jp
c
Kogakuin University, School of Architecture, Dept. Urban Design and Planning, Japan
c
tetsuo_y@cc.kogakuin.ac.jp, c hisada@cc.kogakuin.ac.jp

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Steel Building Industry and Past Development
Steel materials are widely used in Japan due to high strength and ductility for relatively small
volume, ease for fabrication of members and joints, well-established hysteretic behaviour, and
economical cost. From 1986 to 1991, Japan was in an economic bubble, and much technical
investment was made in developing special steel materials and members1). Fire resistant steel, SN
steel, low-yield point steel, and buckling-restrained brace were developed, which promote more use
of the steel materials/members for seismic design.
The 1995 Kobe earthquake indicated problems of steel beam-column connections of moment-
resisting frames, and resulted in improved moment connection details and welding procedures, as
well as use of the newly developed SN steel for the beam section where full yielding is expected.
On the other hand, the earthquake also indicated importance of keeping damage small enough to
allow post-quake use of the building, and promoted accelerated use of base isolation or
supplemental damping schemes2).
Steel buildings have advantages of easiest installation of dampers as well as well-defined elastic
(undamaged) state of the frame, and are qualified to be value-added buildings, performing
excellently against major earthquakes. For tall buildings, steel frame is typically used, and they are
combined with dampers in Japan especially after the 1995 quake2). On the other hand, the dampers
have been rarely used for majority of multi-story steel buildings of 6-story or shorter, although they
were recognized to be much more susceptible to earthquakes3).

1.2 Objectives and Scopes

Several strong earthquakes that occurred after the 1995 Kobe earthquake indicated new issues in
steel seismic design. The 2003 Tokachi-Oki earthquake, 2004 Chuetsu and the 2007 Chuetsu-Oki
earthquakes caused long period earthquake shaking in Tokyo. The 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake
magnitude 9.0 caused tremendous tsunami damage along the pacific coast of eastern Japan, and this
initiated development of steel building design in tsunami-prone areas. Moreover, the ground
shaking by the 2011 quake caused enormous failures of industrial facilities, warehouse, and school
gymnasiums of large span steel structures. Tokyo located 300 km away from the epicentre recorded
peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.5 to 1.5 m/s2, and wide range of short to long period contents
4), 5)
. The shaking was the strongest ever for all the super-tall buildings that had been constructed in
Tokyo in the last 40 years. The long period shaking that followed after the major shaking was
stronger than those recorded from the 2004 and 2007 quakes.
The present paper discusses Japan’s development such as investigations into new effects of
recent earthquakes and new publication of design specifications for the value-added steel structures.
Three major topics are selected and summarized below:
(1) Damage evaluations of numerous school gymnasiums: Since gymnasiums are supposed to
function as post-quake shelters, their damage must be prevented. They are typically of steel
 construction, and belong to elementary, junior high, and senior high schools in each community.
Numerous gymnasiums were damaged during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake6).
(2) Shaking and retrofit of super-tall buildings in Tokyo metropolitan area: Super-tall office
buildings must be robust enough to keep functioning and preventing socio-economic loss, and
not produce many commuter worker evacuees who will hardly find havens locally. They are
typically of steel construction, and are expecting shaking three to four times that from the 2011
quake. Retrofit projects using dampers for some super-tall buildings are underway.
(3) Publication of AIJ steel damper and frame specifications: In November 2014, Architectural
Institute of Japan (AIJ) will publish seismic design specifications for steel frames with steel
dampers, either buckling-restrained braces or shear panels. Most steel buildings are under 6-
stories tall and they are found to be too flexible, by having numerous failures during the 1995
Kobe earthquake. One of the aims is to promote use of dampers to such steel buildings.
The following chapters discuss the above three issues:

2. RECONNAISSANCE INVESTIGATIONS INTO STEEL SCHOOL BUILDINGS

2.1 Gymnasiums and Others Investigated
On 11 March 2011, the strong ground motion and tsunami caused by the Tohoku-Oki Earthquake,
which occurred off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, induced extensive damage along the Pacific
coast. In response to the request of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology, a series of reconnaissance investigations were conducted6) for the area ranging more
than 300 km distance from the epicenter. A total of 216 steel school facilities including 147
gymnasiums were surveyed. According to the ground motion record at the nearest monitoring point
of each site, about 90% of the buildings experienced a ground motion with a 6-lower or 6-upper
reading on the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale as indicated in Table 1.
Table 1. Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) seismic intensity scale (Only 6-lower and 6-upper indicated below)

Seismic Effects on Indoor situations Outside situations Buildings other than houses PGA
Intensity people

6-lower Difficult to A lot of heavy and Strongly and Less earthquake-resistant 2.50–
(5.5–5.9) keep unfixed furniture severely felt buildings easily receive heavy 3.15
standing. moves and falls. It outside. Light posts damage and may be destroyed. m/s²
is impossible to swing, and electric Even highly earthquake-
open the door in poles can fall down, resistant buildings have large
many cases. All causing fires. cracks in walls and will be
objects will shake moderately damaged, at least. In
violently. some buildings, wall tiles and
windowpanes are damaged and
fall.

6-upper Impossible Most heavy and Trees can fall down Many walls collapse, or at least 3.15–
(6.0–6.4) to keep unfixed furniture due to violent are severely damaged. Some 4.00
standing and moves and becomes shaking. Bridges less earthquake-resistant m/s²
to move displaced. and roads suffer buildings collapse. Even highly
without moderate to severe earthquake-resistant buildings
crawling. damage. suffer severe damage.

A typical gymnasium is a steel structure (S-type) composed of moment resistant frames in the Y-
direction and braced frames in the X-direction (Figs. 1 and 2). Other types combine a reinforced
concrete frame with either a steel frame (RS-type) or a steel roof (R-type), as shown in Fig. 2.
Since Japan’s seismic design code was drastically improved in 1981, the 216 steel school
buildings except 15 buildings (construction year unidentified) are categorized as follows.
1) Post-1981 group: 64 buildings (30% of total) satisfying the code.
2) Stronger Pre-1981 group: 40 buildings (19% of total) constructed in or before 1981 with
seismic resistance equivalent to 1), or retrofitted to the same level.
3) Weaker Pre-1981 group: 97 buildings (45% of total) constructed in or before 1981, who
were neither retrofitted nor seismically evaluated.
 steel rigid frame steel rigid frame

RC frame
foundation foundation
S-type RS-type

steel roof
anchor
Note:
Connection between steel
member and concrete frame or RC frame
foundations is of an exposed
type using anchor bolts foundation
R-type
Fig. 1. Typical structure of a school gymnasium (S-type) Fig. 2. Three structure types

2.2 Damage Ranks of Structural Components and Distributions

A visual survey was conducted on each building and the damage was evaluated according to a
guideline for post-earthquake damage evaluation7). The damage to each structural component was
ranked from 0s (no damage) to VIs (complete collapse) based on the criteria shown in Table 2. The
structural damage rank of the entire structure was taken as that for the most severe rank of all
components. The damage to each non-structural component was also evaluated, and the overall
damage of the entire building was ranked as “slight”, “minor”, “moderate”, or “major” damage
from the combination of structural and non-structural damage ranks6).

Table 2. Criteria to evaluate the damage rank of structural components

Damage Structural component

rank Column base Diagonal brace Column, beam, and panel zone Foundation
0s No damage
Is Cracking of Slight buckling Slight yielding Tilting
concrete Tilting 1/300-1/150 1/300-1/150
IIs Elongation of Slip of friction bolts Yielding of the panel zone Tilting
anchor bolts Yielding of braces Tilting 1/150-1/100 1/150-1/100
IIIs Fracture of anchor Fracture of braces Slight local buckling Tilting
bolts (< 20%) (< 20%) Tilting 1/100-1/50 1/100-1/50
IVs Fracture of anchor Fracture of braces Moderate local buckling Tilting
bolts (20-50%) (20-50%) Fracture (< 20%), Tilting 1/50-1/30 1/50-1/30
Vs Fracture of anchor Fracture of braces Severe local buckling Tilting
bolts (> 50 %) (> 50 %) Fracture (> 20%), Tilting > 1/30 > 1/30
VIs Complete collapse

As Table 3 indicates, the majority of the post-1981 and stronger pre-1981 groups showed either
slight or minor damage, whereas 34% of the weaker pre-1981 group showed major damage. Table 4
indicates statistics for structural components of damage rank IVs or Vs only (Table 1) in the
buildings with major damage. In post-1981 group, the most severe damage occurred at column
bases with high rate of 73%, and in both stronger pre-1981 and weaker pre-1981 groups, at diagonal
braces with high rates of 50% and 61%, respectively. Note that “column base” includes the roof-
column anchor connection of the R-type gymnasiums shown in Fig. 2.
Table 3. Building categories and damage statistics (%) Table 4. Building categories and component damage (%)
Mod- Tsu- Col. Diag. Foun-
Group * Slight Minor erate Major nami Group ** base brace dation Col. Beam

Post-1981 7.8 45.3 12.5 15.6 18.8 Post-1981 72.7 18.2 9.1 0.0 0.0
Stronger pre-1981 5.0 50.0 20.0 17.5 7.5 Stronger pre-1981 33.3 50.0 8.3 0.0 8.3
Weaker pre-1981 8.2 23.7 18.6 34.0 15.5 Weaker pre-1981 23.3 60.5 11.6 4.7 0.0
* 64, 40, and 97 buildings from top. ** 11, 12, and 43 major damage buildings from top.
(structural components with damage rank IVs or Vs only)
2.3 Damage to Diagonal Braces
Diagonal braces were in 127 buildings, and 79 (62%) and 42 (33%) buildings used angle section
and round bar with turnbuckle, respectively. The latter was mainly used in weak pre-1981 group.
Remaining 6 (5%) buildings include tubes and flat bars. The following focuses on fracture of the
braces (defined as damage rank IIIs or above, Table 2):
Fracture of the angle brace occurred in 15 buildings mostly in the weak pre-1981 group, and the
failure rate out of the 79 buildings was 19%. Figs. 3a-c for instance, show pull-out failure at the
brace end, brace net section fracture, and pull-out fracture at the gusset plate, respectively.
On the other hand, fracture of round bar brace with turnbuckle occurred in 28 buildings almost
exclusively in the weak pre-1981 group, and the failure rate out of the 42 buildings was 67%, much
higher than the angle brace case mentioned above. Figs. 4a-c for instance, show fracture at the
threaded ends of the rod, fracture at the bolts, and fracture of turnbuckle, respectively. Note that the
turnbuckle brace in Fig. 4c was constructed in the 1990s, when the “Japan Industrial Standard
turnbuckle braces for buildings” was not commonly used, and the ductility of the brace not always
ensured.
Since 1981, the brace connection, including the bolt, weld, and gusset plate, has been required
to have a higher ultimate strength than the yield strength of the brace’s effective cross section.
Fracture of the angle brace, round bar with turn buckle, and connections occurred in the pre-1981
group indicate the brace and connection conceivably did not meet the requirement.

(a) Pull-out fracture at brace end (b) Net section fracture (c) Pull-out fracture at gusset plate
Fig. 3. Fractures at angle brace

(a) Fracture at threaded end (b) Fracture of bolt (c) Fracture of turnbuckle
Fig. 4. Fractures at round bar brace with turnbuckle

2.4 Damage to Column Bases

The ground shaking damage occurred in 166 buildings, of which 100, 17, 46, and 3 buildings were
S-, R-, RS-, and other types, respectively. Bases for columns or steel roofs were damaged in 120
(72%) buildings, and serious failures of the anchor bolt fracture occurred in 27 buildings. Fracture
of the anchor bolts or equivalent damage at the base is categorized as damage rank IIIs or higher
(Table 2). The severe damage occurred mostly in the post-1981 group (Table 4, Sec. 2.2).
Fig. 5a shows damage of rank IIs that includes permanent elongation of the anchor bolt as well
as significant cracking of the concrete. Fig. 5b shows more severe failure of anchor bolts where
both elongation and fracture occurred. Prior to the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the column base had
been designed as a pinned connection and elongation of the anchor bolt was not always considered
in design. However, the 1995 quake caused enormous failures of exposed column bases, which led
later to a provision to prevent premature fracture. In spite, it was not till the 2000s that standards for
anchor bolts with ensured ductility were completed and such bolts manufactured. This attributed to
the severe damage of the column bases in the post-1981 group.
Typical damage of an R-type gymnasium was the collapse of the side concrete at the anchor,
shown in Fig. 5c. In one-third of the R-type gymnasiums, the anchor damage was ranked as IIs,
which included spalling and damage at top of concrete frame (Fig. 2), which could result in much
more serious falling of roof structures.

(a) Anchor yielding caused cracks (b) Pull-out fracture of anchor bolts (c) Anchor & concrete damage (R-type)
Fig. 5. Failures at the base of steel column or steel roof (R-type gymnasium)

3. SUPER-TALL STEEL BUILDING RETROFIT

Due to the strong shaking of many super-tall buildings in Tokyo during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki
earthquake, various mitigation measures including seismic retrofit are being investigated against
much more intense earthquakes that are believed to be possible in the area. Some response records
of the supplementally-damped super-tall buildings indicated response reduction by dampers, and
retrofit of conventional super-tall buildings typically considers damper installations. This will be
explained below, by referring to a project in which the writers are involved:

3.1 Responses Records of Super-Tall Building with Conventional Structure

The example is a seismically-resistant 29-story steel building (Fig. 6) constructed in 1989. It is a
school building of Kogakuin University8), located in central Tokyo. The building height is 143 m,
floor plan dimension is 38.4 and 25.6 m in NS (x-) and EW (y-) directions, respectively, and steel
moment resisting frame combined with many short braces provided seismic resistance (Fig. 6b).
As will be clarified, the structure did not fail, but for instance, ceiling partially fell down (Fig. 7a)
in the mid- and upper stories, implying short period acceleration input on those stories. In contrast,
the copy machine with casters (Fig. 7b), presumably having a long vibration period, moved over
and impacted other equipment, implying long period acceleration there. High accelerations also
caused falling of books from shelves (Fig. 7c). In a nearby super-tall building, elevator cables were
damaged (Fig. 7d), possibly resonating to the long period accelerations, and it took three weeks
until the elevator was back to service. Similar failures occurred due to the long period shaking by
the 2004 Chuetsu earthquake.
During the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, the peak accelerations in x- and y-directions were
0.91 and 0.89 m/s2 at the base, and 2.35 and 3.16 m/s2 at the top floor, respectively. The average
drift angle, top floor displacement divided by the height, is 1/350 rad, and the structure remained
elastic. Fig. 8a compares acceleration records at base and top floor in y-direction. The earthquake
duration is long and about 200 seconds. For the first 90 seconds of the figure, short period
accelerations of the base and top floor are apparent. For the next 110 seconds, long period and very
weak base accelerations as well as largely amplified top floor accelerations are seen (Fig. 8b).
By using a mode identification technique for linear responses, contribution of each vibration
 (a) (b)

Falling of ceiling at story levels Movement of copy machine

28, 21, 14, etc. at story level 25

(c) (d)

NS EW
(a) 29-story building (b) NS (x-) and EW (y-) frames Falling of books at story level 25 Elevator cable damage
(other building)
Fig. 6. Super-tall building in central Tokyo Fig. 7. Acceleration-induced damage

mode has been obtained with excellent accuracy4), 5). Fig. 8b shows that the acceleration of each
mode at the top floor is dominated by the 2nd mode for the first 90 seconds. For the later 110
seconds, the 1st mode response increased and became dominant. Although not shown, for the 16th
floor the 2nd mode was much more dominant, producing almost the same acceleration as top floor.
This is due to the 2nd mode vector giving the largest modal responses around the mid-height of the
building5).
Top acceleration
Base acceleration

High Frequency Low Frequency

(a) Accelerations recorded at top (29th floor) and base.

2nd mode
3rd mode 1st mode

(b) Modal contributions to 29th floor acceleration.

Fig. 8. Accelerations (a) recorded at base and 29th floor, and (b) modal contributions at 29th floor

From available response records of other super-tall buildings and some interviews to the
occupants, it appears that behavior of various elements (non-structural components, equipment, and
contents) can be explained by their vibration periods and building modal properties as discussed
above. Previously, little attention was paid to the acceleration-induced damage which, however, can
become enormous for the future shaking 3 to 4 times stronger ((2) of Sec. 1.2).

3.2 Target Performance for Seismic Retrofit Using Dampers

The records were also available from super-tall buildings with dampers. Analyzing the records,
good reductions of the accelerations and displacements were recognized from the buildings with
velocity-dependent dampers2), 4), 5). The dampers dissipate kinetic energy through viscous damping,
and they include oil, viscous, and viscoelastic dampers. Deformation-dependent dampers such as
steel and friction dampers did not dissipate energy for the level of shaking in Tokyo.
For the 29-story building explained in Sec. 3.1, the university decided seismic retrofit by
installing oil dampers against much stronger earthquakes as shown in Fig. 9. Artificial long period
ground motion from hypothetical Tokai - Tonankai coupled earthquake, and large pulse ground
motion from hypothetical Tokyo near-field earthquake, and the 1940 El Centro earthquake (NS) that
is scaled 1.495 times (i.e., peak ground acceleration 0.521g) to satisfy peak ground velocity of 50
 Tokai-Tonankai coupled earthquake (NS)
Acc. (cm/s2) PGA = 145cm/s2 Spv (cm/s)

Vel. Response spectra (cm/s)

Tokai-Tonankai
coupled eq.
Tokyo near-field earthquake (NS) (NS)
Acc. (cm/s2)

PGA = 595cm/s2
El-Centro eq.
(NS)
El-Centro earthquake (NS)
Metropolitan near-field eq.
Acc. (cm/s2)

PGA = 511cm/s2 (NS) Period (s)

(a) Time histories of ground motions (b) Pseudo-velocity response spectrum (5%damping)
Fig. 9. Ground motions used for design validations

cm/s. The scaled El Centro earthquake is one of the major earthquakes considered for seismic
design of tall buildings in Japan.
Limiting the story drift ratio (drift angle) within 0.01 rad is considered to minimize damage to
structural and some non-structural components. Other non-structural components, equipment, and
contents are checked against accelerations, and their reinforcements, if needed, are being explored
experimentally and analytically. In this manner, efforts are being made to assure safety of many
students and staff as well as continuity of research and education, and to utilize the building as a
haven for students who, like many commuters (Sec. 1.2), would lose transportations to their homes

3.3 Frame Effectiveness Evaluation

In a building with supplemental dampers, the frame must have an ability to transmit its deformation
and inertia force to the damper as much as possible in order to maximize energy dissipation by the
damper. A method to determine appropriate damper locations in the example 29-story building will
be explained. It is important for retrofit design, since the existing frame was designed as a
conventional structure, not necessarily for damper installation.
The method considers two static elastic analysis cases: State N (no damper) and State R (rigid
damper) where the added component has zero stiffness and infinite stiffness in its stroke direction,
respectively9). The added component is defined as the total of the damper and brace connected in
series.
The thick solid lines in Fig. 10 left show locations of the added components assumed in x-
direction frame (compare with Fig. 6b). At the i-th story, the horizontal component of the zero
stiffness damper deformation divided by the story drift is defined as “damper deformability ratio”
αNi indicating the largest possible damper deformation. Whereas, the horizontal component of the
infinite stiffness damper force divided by the story shear is defined as “damper resistibility ratio”
αRi indicating the largest possible damper force. The αNi and αRi are plotted in Fig. 10 right: selected
damper locations give excellent values of αNi > 1 unlike a typical value less than 1. Moreover, αRi
varying from 0.3 to 0.6 means that the damper can share a large portion of the story shear.
Damper locations Damper locations
28FL 28FL Case (a) Case (b) Case (a) Case (b)

25FL 25FL

20FL 20FL

15FL 15FL

10FL 10FL

5FL 5FL αRi

αNi αRi αNi 1.08

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 Case (a) Case (b) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

Fig. 10. αNi and αRi indicators for x-frame effectiveness Fig. 11. αNi and αRi indicators for y-frame effectiveness
 Fig. 11 left shows two cases of locations in y-direction frame, and Fig. 11 right plots αNi and αRi
for the two cases. Case (b) damper locations give much higher αNi and αRi than Case (a). The
building has very slender braced frames that tend to deform in a cantilever mode. Inserting
dampers to the bay between such frames is effective, since shear deformation of the bay is
amplified by relative vertical displacements of the columns on the opposite sides of the bay. Case
(b) is more effective, since the relative displacements are larger.
In this manner, αNi and αRi can indicate appropriate locations of dampers and effectiveness of the
existing frame. Their use for various checks associated with design and analysis of supplementally
damped steel buildings is recommended in the AIJ specifications (Chap. 4).

3.4 Retrofit Design and Analytical Validations

As shown in Fig. 12, oil dampers are considered for the retrofit project. The damper utilizes flow
resistance of the oil with low viscosity, and has typically a relief mechanism to switch viscous
coefficient to a small value when subjected to a large velocity, thereby causing the hysteresis to
switch from an elliptical shape to a rectangle shape (Fig. 12b). The relief load Fdy = 1,200 or 1,600
kN, viscous coefficient Cd = 188 to 750 kN/(cm/s) , damper stiffness Kd = 4,300 or 5,400 kN/cm are
considered, respectively, in the order from upper to lower stories.
Universal joint Brace Damper Universal joint

Kd Cd
Kb
Fd, ud

Brace & connections Damper

uc (a) (b)
Fig. 12. (a) Oil damper considered and analysis model; and (b) hysteresis curves under smaller and larger strokes.

Fig.13a shows example locations of 68 dampers in total of x- and y-directions, where average of
about one damper in each direction is considered per story. The damper price is only about 20% of
the total cost of about $100,000 per location, including structural, and largely non-structural and
cosmetic works. Thus, limiting the number of dampers (and locations) is a key to control the cost.
The stories for damper installations were selected in the order of high product αNi αRi.
Fig. 13b shows analytical results from the scaled 1940 El Centro earthquake (NS) that produce
the largest peak responses, as understood from the largest spectral response (Fig. 9b) at the
buildings fundamental vibration periods of about 3 sec. in both directions. Compared with the non-
retrofitted case, story drift ratio and acceleration are reduced to 0.74 and 0.64 times, respectively.
31

26 100 εPL = 0.06

dampers
100
dampers
21 68
dampers

16 68
dampers εPL = 0.08

11

No
damper
εPL = 0.10
6
No
damper
1

(a) (b)
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0 500 1000 1500
(a) (b)
Story drift ratio Accel. (cm/s2)
Fig. 13. Reduced number of oil dampers for economical Fig. 14. Existing steel brace and damage (with no
and effective retrofit (68 dampers = 2.3 dampers /story). dampers, hypothetical Tokyo near-field earthquake)
The case using 68 dampers shows almost the same performance as the 100 damper case.
Fig. 14 shows large cumulated plastic strains and deformations of an existing x-direction brace
that were obtained by using the frame response histories due to the Tokyo near-field earthquake.
Although not shown, the cumulated plastic strain is reduced by a factor of three using the dampers.

4. DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS FOR STEEL STRUCTURES AND STEEL DAMPERS

4.1 AIJ Steel Damper and Frame Specifications
AIJ will publish the first edition of design specifications for steel frames with steel dampers, either
buckling-restrained braces or shear panels. The specifications cover evaluation and analysis
methods for dampers and frames, and direct displacement-based design method for the building.
Unique features of the specifications are: (1) detailed methods are given for evaluation and
design of dampers, frame members, and connections, (2) supplemental damping and stiffness
effects are expressed on a common scale using a unified theory, (3) the building with dampers can
be designed by the use of performance curve and static analysis only, if its height is below 60 m,
and (4) detailed and crude analysis approaches as well as the algorithms and subprograms are given.
As shown in Fig. 15, the specification provides a simplified design Route 1 (feature (3) above)
for relatively short steel buildings. It may especially promote upgrade of 6-story buildings or shorter,
who are majority of the building stock that have been designed to be too flexible (Sec. 1.1). Note,
however, that Route 1 is permitted only if the direct displacement design method or other
comparable methods are used to size the dampers (Sec. 4.2).

START No.
Height ≦ 60 m ?

Set seismic level &
story drift limit
Do preliminary design of
frame only by static
analysis of m-m model
Decide damper sizes by
direct displacement-
based design method
Yes.
Do static analysis of m-m model
and confirm local response
Do static analysis of m-m model
and confirm local deformability
against 1.5 times the
story drift limit
END Route 1
Do time history analysis Do time history analysis
of shear spring model and of m-m model and
confirm global response confirm both global &
local responses
Do static analysis of m-m
model and confirm
local response
END Route 2 END Route 3

Fig. 15. AIJ Steel Damper and Frame Specifications (“m-m model” means the member-to-member model).

4.2 Direct Displacement-Based Design Using Dampers

Fig. 16 shows the performance curve originally proposed by the writer for steel dampers combined
with an elastic frame10), 2). The curve considers an equivalent single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF)
system and shows the displacement reduction ratio Rd and force (or pseudo-acceleration) reduction
ratio Rpa expressed relative to the frame responses without dampers. The curve theoretically reflects
effects of the stiffness ratio Ka/Kf between the added component and frame, and ductility demand μ
of the added component. Fig. 16 assumes constant pseudo-velocity spectrum (Spv), but other cases
can also be plotted. The curves clearly indicate, and promote understanding of, the strong effects of
the parameters. They also give necessary Ka/Kf value for the target drift or Rd value.
It has been found that, for the case of constant Spv, μ = 4 to 5 is adequate11) for reasonable
control of both Rd and Rpa. Thus, an alternative performance curve12) is shown in Fig. 17 by
selecting only μ = 4 and a variety of frame periods Tf ’s. This gives directly the values of
displacement spectra Sd and pseudo-acceleration Spa for different Ka/Kf and Tf . In using the curve,
the Tf and target Sd values are given, and the necessary Ka/Kf value is obtained.
Both curves in Figs. 16 and 17 enable the direct displacement- or acceleration-based design of a
supplementally damped steel building. Once required Ka/Kf value in the SDOF system is obtained,
it is converted to the dampers in the MDOF system whose frame stiffness is explicitly known at
each story. A special method is also given in specification for assuring reasonably uniform story
 Rpa (1)
Spa (cm/s2)
(2) (1.5) No
1.5 1500 Tf =
damper 1s
(2.5)
1 1000 1.5 s No
(μ）(4) damper
0.2 2s
0.5
(10) 1 3s
0.5
10 4 2 500
Ka/Kf 10 4 2 1 0.5 0.2
Ka/Kf Sd
0 Rd 0 (cm)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 40 80 120
Fig. 16. Performance curves indicating displacement Fig. 17. Performance curves (μ = 4 in Fig. 16) for
and pseudo-acceleration reduction ratios Rd and Rpa direct displacement- or acceleration-based design
for combined steel damper and elastic frame considering various frame periods Tf ’s

drift distributions, even when the frame tends to deform non-uniformly2), 3), 10), 11). Since the
publication 10), these methods have been extended to different types of dampers (e.g. Sec. 3.2) 2), as
well as inelastic frames including reinforced-concrete frames and timber frames. They are adopted
in several other design specifications in Japan in order to provide better seismic protections.

5. SUMMARY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Due to the recent seismic hazards, Japan’s focus on steel seismic damage mitigation clearly has
shifted to resilience and continued functionality of large capacity buildings, as discussed here.
The writers acknowledge the contributions provided by the following colleagues: Chapter 2;
Prof. J. Iyama and Mr. T. Koyama (Univ.of Tokyo), Prof. S. Kishiki (Osaka Inst.of Tech.), Prof. Y.
Shimada (Chiba Univ.), Prof. H. Asada (Kobe Univ.), and Prof. M. Ikenaga (Tohoku Univ.),
Chapter 3; Prof. W. Pu (Wuhan Univ. of Tech.) and Mr. Y. Arakawa (Kogakuin Univ.), Chap. 4;
Prof. M. Midorikawa (Hokkaido Univ.) and Prof. K. Matsuda (Tokyo Inst. of Tech.). The writers
also express deep gratitude to Mr. B.F. Maison in US.

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