Control Performance of Clear Damping Wall with Glass and Viscoelastic Material applied to Steel Frame Structure

Clear Damping Wall is a novel vibration control system comprising a transparent glass wall and a viscoelastic material. It is effective in both architectural and structural designs because glass walls make the structure visually attractive and the viscoelastic material dissipates vibration energy produced by various external loads such as strong winds and large earthquakes. Clear Damping Wall was employed in the new guard station at the Obayashi Corporation Technical Research Institute as the tenth application of the system. Shaking tests of the building were conducted to confirm the vibration control performance. As results, installation of the Clear Damping Wall increased the modal stiffness of the fundamental mode by approximately 35%, with the acceleration response decreased by approximately 50%. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the dynamic characteristics such as the natural frequency and the damping ratio of the structure obtained by the shaking tests agreed well with that of the prospected values calculated by the design method of the Clear Damping Wall.