Performance Study of an Eight-story Steel Building Equipped with Oil Dampers Damaged During the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Part 1: Structural Identification and Damage Reasoning

Oil dampers installed on the first floor of an eight-story steel building were completely destroyed during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. It is believed to be the first time in the world that real oil dampers in service failed due to earthquakes. Before this failure event, the actual performance of buildings that use oil dampers during catastrophic earthquakes has never been verified. Investigating the cause of the damage of the oil dampers is thus necessary and urgent. In this paper, a comprehensive identification was conducted to rebuild the numerical model of this damped structure equipped with/without damaged oil dampers using the measurement data of the installed monitoring system. Furthermore, the damage process of the oil dampers was postulated based on the identification and simulation results. The limit states of the oil dampers were studied. Based on the damages of the dampers and connection, the oil dampers experienced the displacement limit state when the allowable displacement limit was surpassed and the central cylinder pushed against the abutment. The insufficient stroke limit is the main cause of the collision between the damper and the abutment on the floor, which finally led to the failure of the oil dampers.