Performance of viscoelastic dampers (VED) under various temperatures and application of magnetorheological dampers (MRD) for seismic control of structures

A number of studies have been carried out to investigate the performance of viscoelastic dampers (VEDs) and magnetorheological dampers (MRDs) in controlling the seismic response of buildings, but very few of them regarding the effect of temperature on the behavior of those dampers. The energy absorption properties of the VEDs are dependent on the ambient temperature, excitation frequency and strain amplitude. Several mathematical models have been investigated for reproducing the experimental behavior of single degree of freedom VEDs and MEDs. Of these, only the fractional derivative model can reflect the influence of temperature which is, however, so complex that it is difficult to apply in structural analysis. In order to verify the effect of temperature, two case studies of structural element have been conducted: once using VED and once using MRD. Kelvin–Voigt mathematical model applied, they were investigated and after analyzing the results, the force vs. displacement showed that MRD achieved a high force capacity and a better performance than VED. Furthermore, the effect of the temperature in case of VED observed via plotting the dissipated energy hysteresis at different temperatures. These results validate the effect of the temperature as the lower the temperature the more viscous the dashpot element becomes, hence improving damping, but this is up to a specific low temperature.