EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF DAMPED OUTRIGGERS

The outriggers are the key components of super tall buildings. Increasing the energy dissipation capacities of outriggers has significant value on improving the structural seismic performance. Based on the pseudo-static test of a conventional outrigger, the seismic performance of outriggers with different dampers was investigated through experiments in this study. The results indicated that the auxiliary devices should be installed to ensure the pure shear deformation state of the dampers. Installing either mild steel dampers or friction dampers at the end of the outrigger could improve its energy dissipation capacity and prevent its components from being damaged. As the stiffness and strength of a friction damper can be decoupled, the design process of such damper in the outriggers was much operable, making it more adoptable and promotable in engineering practice. Moreover, the feasibility of using mild steel dampers in the outriggers was also analyzed in this study. It was found that due to the coupling of stiffness and strength of mild steel dampers, the design requirements for the stiffness and strength of outriggers were hard to meet simultaneously. Therefore, further in-depth studies on the application of outrigger with mild steel dampers are needed.