Seismic performance of friction dampers using flexure of rc shear wall system

Shear wall systems in high-rise apartments are governed by the flexural behaviour of members such as a cantilever beam. The installation of the damper-brace system in a structure governed by flexural behaviour is not suitable. Because of the relatively high lateral stiffness of the shear wall, a load is not concentrated on the brace and the brace cannot perform the role of a damping device. In this paper, a friction damper that applies the flexibility of a shear wall is proposed in order to reduce the deformation of the structure. To evaluate the performance of the proposed friction damper, a nonlinear time history analysis is executed by the SeismoStruct analysis program, and a multiple vertical linear element model is used for simulating flexural behaviour of the shear wall. It is found that the control performance of the proposed friction damper is superior to that of a coupled wall with a rigid beam. In conclusion, this study verified that the optimal control performance of the proposed friction damper is equal to 45% of the maximum shear force induced in the middle floor beam with the rigid beam. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.