The dimensioning of seismic viscous dampers to be inserted in moment resisting frame structures

In this paper, the seismic behaviour of moment resisting frame structures equipped with viscous dampers is studied with the purpose of extending, to the case of a generic moment resisting frame structure, a practical procedure for the identification of the mechanical characteristics of viscous dampers which allows to achieve target performance levels, which was originally proposed by the authors for shear–type moment resisting frame systems. In detail, a simple design formula capable to estimate the damping coefficient c is obtained for the case of a generic moment resisting frame structure, thus considering the effective flexibility of the system.