Seismic design of new buildings equipped with fluid-viscous dampers according to two different layouts: SPD inter-storey placement and MPD tower configuration

The focus of this thesis is the study of a newly designed building for which a damping system has been developed to ensure life safety during high-intensity earthquakes. A fluido-viscous damper system is employed and dimensioned according to the Direct Five-Step Procedure (DFSP). The idea of the work is to analyse the actual behaviour of a bare structure without devices and compare it with the behaviour of a structure equipped with dampers to see globally and locally whether the initial target response reduction factor discussed and decided in the DFSP has been achieved. Dampers are designed according to two types of configurations: • Placed as inter-storey braces (SPD). • Connect to external tower adjacent to the structure as dissipative links (MPD). Furthermore, a third solution has been studied, being composed by the same dampers used in the SPD system but placed according to the MPD system (MPDSPD-Dampers configuration). All the benefits these systems bring to the building have been analysed and quantified and we can state the following: • Globally in terms of base-shear vs roof displacement response, the imposed target response reduction factors have been achieved in each configuration. • Locally (focus on selected columns) in some cases there are still problems confined to individual elements, which can be solved by secondary arrangements. Finally, it can be confirmed that the MPDSPD damper configuration undoubtedly provides the best results, since the efficiency of the MPD placement (as a dissipative connection) is better than that of the SPD placement (as inter-storey dissipative braces).