A Novel Multilevel Energy Dissipative Device as an Alternative for Seismic Protection of Structures

Multilevel energy dissipative technique has been developed in the field of structure vibration control. This paper presents a new type of multilevel energy dissipation device characterized by stiffness variable and multilevel energy dissipative in order to achieve different vibration control demands. The proposed device is mainly composed of viscoelastic damping layer and steel damper, a covering plate was adopted being placed at the top of viscoelastic damper to limit its displacement aiming at alternating energy dissipation patterns. The viscoelastic damping layer can provide damping effect during wind vibration or small earthquake, and the steel damper will work together with viscoelastic damper to dissipate earthquake input energy when experience strong seismic event. Hysteretic behavior of the proposed device was investigated by Cyclic loading test under sinusoidal excitations. The obtained hysteretic curves show that the device behaves viscoelastic damping effect under small excitation, and the contribution of stiffening effect to the primary structures can be negligible, with the displacement increased, the steel damper initiated to exhibit both stiffness contribution and energy dissipation capacity. The configuration of the proposed device is feasible for achieving multilevel energy dissipation, proving the special device can be usefully employed as an alternative for passive seismic protection of new and existing structures.