Experimental study of seismic response of buildings with supplemental fluid dampers

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the seismic response of buildings with supplemental fluid damping devices. These devices operate on the principle of fluid flow through orifices specially shaped so as to produce damping forces proportional to the velocity, i.e. the devices operate as linear viscous dampers. The experimental results demonstrate that the addition of fluid dampers to the tested steel model structure resulted in reductions of interstory drifts, floor accelerations and story shear forces by factors of two to three in comparison with the response of the same structure without the dampers.