Performance Based Design of Viscoelastic Coupling Dampers in Mass Timber Buildings

Viscoelastic Coupling Dampers (VCDs) have been developed over the past 15 years at the University of Toronto and by Kinetica for use in multi-storey buildings constructed with conventional construction techniques (steel and concrete). It has been shown the VCDs improve the wind and seismic performance of these buildings, leading to safer, higher performing and more resilient structures.
There has been a boom of mass timber construction due to the inherent sustainability, modularity and speed of construction using mass timber. Timber buildings are inherently flexible making them susceptible to wind and seismic vibrations. VCD connection details and lateral load resisting systems with VCDs have been developed for mass timber structures. This research project will assess the efficiency of VCDs within three types of mass timber lateral load resisting systems, assess connection details and develop Performance-Based Design Techniques for mass timber structures with VCDs.

Faculty Supervisor:

Brent Sleep;Constantin Christopoulos

Student:

Jeffrey Salmon

Partner:

Kinetica Dynamics Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto