Efficient Arrangement of Friction Damped Bracing System (FDBS) for Multi-storey Steel Frame

The Friction Damped Bracing System (FDBS) is able to significantly control the vibration of framed structure without dissipating energy through the inelastic yielding of its structural components. Therefore, it is a useful tool to design the structural system by isolating the energy dissipation components at some specific as well as desired locations. This purposeful isolation of the critical components helps, in turn, to monitor the health of the system efficiently, especially for the large and complicated systems such as process plant structures, offshore structure, etc. Therefore, effective placement of the energy dissipation devices in terms of their numbers as well as locations is essential to meet the optimum requirement of serviceability, safety, and stability. In this article, FDBS is modelled numerically following standard Friction Damper guideline. The 2D building frames with FDBS at various locations are used to study the responses of multi-storey building frames having different vertical bracing configurations. Locations of the energy dissipation devices are altered for each of the structures to study the effect of load flow through the desired load path. It is intended to isolate the FDBS in such a way so that the operational constraints do not interfere with the monitoring and maintenance of the critical dissipating system, which is the lifeline for the structural stability. Nonlinear time history analysis is performed for each of the frames for a scaled ground motion obtained using Conditional Mean Spectra for the city of Vancouver. Energy dissipation behavior of the structures is compared in order to comprehend the effect of damper arrangement. Load versus deflection behaviour of the structures at different levels indicate that structures with regular configurations show better behaviour in comparison to the customized structures with special configurations. Therefore, it is concluded that FDBS enabled structural systems are suitable as well as necessary for the complicated structures where the horizontal load transfer system is expected to be flexible to meet the process requirements.