Experimental Tests of Longitudinal Added Damping and Stiffness Device

Structural passive control technology has been developed rapidly over the past decade, and proven as a feasible and promising way in mitigating the seismic response of a structure. In numerous passive control devices, the added damping and stiffness (ADAS) has been verified as an effective and economical energy-absorbing device to dissipate the seismic energy. Successful applications have also been achieved in Taiwan. A new device named as the longitudinal added damping and stiffness (LADAS) has been developed in this study. The component test shows that the LADAS device can sustain an extremely large number of yielding reversals without any sign of stiffness or strength degradation and has stable energy-dissipating capability. The comparison of analytical and experimental results illustrates that the Wen’s model in an incremental form could successfully predict the hysteretic behavior of LADAS device. Moreover, the earthquake proof efficiency of the LADAS was carried out on a scaled-down three steel frame on a shaking table in Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan. The experiment result demonstrates that a structure with LADASs can significantly reduce the seismic response.