Evaluation of Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Frames Using Pall Friction Damper

Abstract: Considering the seismicity of most of the areas in Iran, it is inevitable to confront the earthquake because of its major property and life damages. Therefore researchers put a great effort on designing and strengthening against earthquake. The researches conducted so far for improving the reinforced concrete structures using different types of steel braces and analytical studies and widespread experiments has been done for confronting destructive effects of earthquake on structures, results show the proper effectiveness of different mechanisms of inactive seismic control of structures as an efficient option for confronting the earthquake forces. Of different control methods, using friction damper could be counted as one of the best methods for improving the seismic behavior of current structures, as it uses a simple mechanism and doesn’t need specific materials or technology. By using friction dampers both the rigidity and the structure’s hysteresis energy loss ability is increased. These dampers by their inelastic behavior in different points of the structure cause the loss of incoming energy of earthquake. Also in high importance structures, by selecting the proper design parameters, it is possible to prevent the main structural members to enter the inelastic behavior limit which causes local damages to some parts of them or minimize that. This system was first introduced by Pall and March in 1982. The mechanism of this system is creating slippage friction surfaces at the intersection of braces. For building frames, these dampers could be used in crossed tension bracing, single diagonal bracing and Chevron bracing. The first model of pall friction damper was tested in chevron bracing against earthquake in Eaton Building in Canada. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of Pall friction dampers in reducing structural response during the earthquake. Therefore, modeling of the damper is based on the model used by the Pall Corporation in Eaton Building. The functioning of this damper is by generating friction under lateral shear force which causes the movement of the damper and generation of slippage in it. Therefore, three concrete moment frames with 5, 8 and 10 stories, have been designed according to the Iranian National Codes. Using SAP2000, v14, several static nonlinear analyses were done to get the performance point of frames on the basis of the capacity spectrum method. Adding chevron braces to the mid span, the target displacement of frames were determined. Considering the fact that none of the braced moment frames satisfied the Life Safety criteria under Design Based Earthquake, Pall friction dampers have been added to the frames and static nonlinear analysis were done by several slip loads such as 1%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of frame weights. Evaluation showed that in optimum slip Load, the performance level of the frames improves.