Effectiveness of non-linear fluid viscous dampers in seismically isolated buildings

Near-field earthquake records including long-period high-amplitude velocity pulses can cause large isolation system displacements leading to buckling or rupture of isolators. In such cases, providing supplemental damping in the isolation system has been proposed as a solution. However, it is known that linear viscous dampers can reduce base displacements in case of near-field earthquakes but at the potential expense of increased superstructure response in case of far-field earthquakes. But can non-linear dampers with different levels of non-linearity offer a superior seismic performance? In order to answer this question, the effectiveness of non-linear viscous dampers in reducing isolator displacements and its effects on the superstructure response are investigated. A comparison with linear viscous dampers via time history analysis is done using a base-isolated benchmark building model under historical near-field and far-field earthquake records for a wide range of different levels of non-linearity and supplemental damping. The results show that the non-linearity level and the amount of supplemental damping play important roles in reducing base displacements effectively. Although use of non-linear supplemental dampers may cause superstructure response amplification in case of far-field earthquakes, this negative effect may be avoided or even reduced by using appropriate combinations of non-linearity level and supplemental damping.