Analytical investigation of an SDOF building structure equipped with a friction damper

The purpose of this study is to investigate analytically a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) building structure equipped with a friction damper for assessing its vibration control effect. Friction dampers are installed between stories to reduce inter-story displacements of building structures subjected to external loading. They are in general regarded to generate damping forces characterized by Coulomb damping, of which the directions are opposite to the inter-story velocities of building structures. Hence, the building structure model with friction dampers can be represented by a mass-spring-viscous-Coulomb damping system. The building response reduction as a result of damper installation can be provided by observing the damping ratio rather than the friction force contributed by the dampers. Since a large friction damper force is required to attenuate the response of the building due to strong excitation, friction force ratio is directly related to building response reduction, which is the friction force of the damper versus external force. Therefore, damping and friction force ratios are key parameters, playing a main role in selecting an optimal friction damper, which satisfies target response reduction. This study first identifies an SDOF building structure installed with a friction damper for free vibration with initial conditions. A closed-form expression of normalized displacement is derived in terms of friction force ratio in the time domain. Peak and valley of displacements are also found and then the time when the structure stops is derived with recursive interval number. This study is extended to identify steady-state vibration of the structure by deriving closed-form solution in case of resonance in terms of friction force ratio. Then, the dissipated energy balance is identified for both free and steady-state vibrations. Finally, equivalent viscous damping ratios are derived by using friction force ratio based on dissipated energy balance equation. The derived equations in terms of viscous damping ratio and friction force ratio can provide insight to design a friction damper for reducing structural displacement under external loadings.