seismic performance improvement of existing precast buildings using dissipative devices

this paper investigates a new type of friction damper for improving seismic performance of precast concrete frame structures. The friction damper is used externally at selected beam-to-column joints of the frame to dissipate energy during severe earthquakes a simplified model describing the hysteretic behaviour of the friction device was developed and parametric analyses were carried out in order to establish the optimum value of the slip force of the device for the different precast structures. the effectiveness of the dissipative friction device was numerically assessed on different typologies of precast structures by performing nonlinear dynamic analyses. the results of the numerical investigations showed that the introduction of the devices caused an increase of the dissipative capacity of the buildings.