Developing a frictional vibration damper for low-rise steel buildings

This paper describes the experimentally observed behavior of a new friction-based damping device which we have proposed. A harmonic excitation was applied to the device itself and to a small-scale 3-D structural model with the damping device attached. The test parameters were the model natural period, stiffness of the mounting bracket for the damping device, spring tension, and excitation frequency. The results of experiment and analysis revealed a relationship between these experimental variables and the damping effect in the range of natural periods corresponding to those observed in low-rise steel buildings.