The Building with Damping Devices. In addition to flexur

The Building with Damping Devices. In addition to flexural restoring forces, all buildings possess intrinsic internal friction, due to structural and nonstructural elements, that causes the amplitude of vibrations to decay as these elements absorb vibrational energy. One of several techniques employed in modern earthquake-resistant design uses added damping devices such as shock absorbers between adjacent floors to artificially increase the internal damping of a building and improve its resistance to earthquake-induced motion (see Figure 6.P.2). The effects of intrinsic and artificial damping are accounted for by including damping forces of the form F(j) d = ??(x? j ? x? j?1) ? ?(x? j ? x? j+1), j = 2,