Equivalent damping of SDOF structure with Maxwell damper

To predict the maximum earthquake response of an SDOF structure with a Maxwell fluid damper or supplemental brace-viscous damper system using the seismic design response spectrum technique, a new approach is presented to determine the first- and second-order equivalent viscous damping and stiffness, the peak responses, and the damper force of the above structure. Based on the fact that the dynamic characteristics of a general linear viscoelastically damped structure are fully determined by its free vibration properties and the relaxation time constants of a Maxwell fluid damper and supplemental brace-viscous damper system in engineering practice are all small, the method of improved multiple time scales and the equivalent criterion in which all free vibration properties are the same are used to obtain the first- and second-order equivalent viscous damping and stiffness of the above structure in closed form. The accuracy of the proposed method is higher and significantly better than that of the modal strain energy method. Furthermore, in the parametric range of the requirements of the Chinese "Code for Seismic Design of Buildings", the error of the proposed second-order equivalent system for the above-mentioned engineering structure is not more than 0.5%.