Viscoelastic (VE) dampers are one of the most popular structural control devices, and serious efforts have been undertaken to develop their availability in civil engineering. However, the performance of VE dampers is dependent on the energy dissipation properties of VE materials. In this study, several kinds of VE materials based on different matrix rubbers were developed, and tests on VE dampers based on nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) matrix and silicone rubber (SR) matrix were carried out. The results indicate that NBR matrix VE dampers have a high energy dissipation capacity, whereas SR matrix VE dampers have stable performance under different working conditions. To clarify the mechanical properties of VE dampers based on NBR and SR matrices, the equivalent higher-order fractional derivative model, which takes into account the effects of temperature and frequency simultaneously, is proposed. The numerical results using this model are in accord with experimental results.

Viscoelastic dampers are one of the most popular earthquake mitigation devices for building structures with a large number of applications in civil engineering. The seismic performance of viscoelastic dampers is greatly affected by viscoelastic materials. The present paper addresses the theoretical and experimental studies of the viscoelastic damper. The regular polyhedron chain network models for viscoelastic materials are proposed based on the molecular chain network microstructures and the temperature–frequency equivalent principle. Several dynamic property tests for the viscoelastic damper at different temperatures, frequencies, and displacements are carried out, and the proposed models are verified by comparing the numerical and experimental results. The comparisons show that the viscoelastic damper has perfect energy dissipation capacity, and the regular polyhedron chain network models can well describe the mechanical properties of the viscoelastic damper at different environmental temperatures and excitation frequencies.

This work presents an experimental and numerical study on the dynamic properties of viscoelastic (VE) microvibration damper under microvibration conditions at different frequencies and temperatures. The experimental results show that the storage modulus and the loss factor of VE microvibration damper both increase with increasing frequency but decrease with increasing temperature. To explicitly and accurately represent the temperature and frequency effects on the dynamic properties of VE microvibration damper, a modified standard solid model based on a phenomenological model and chain network model is proposed. A Gaussian chain spring and a temperature-dependent dashpot are employed to reflect the temperature effect in the model, and the frequency effect is considered with the nature of the standard solid model. Then, the proposed model is verified by comparing the numerical results with the experimental data. The results show that the proposed model can accurately describe the dynamic properties of VE microvibration damper at different temperatures and frequencies.

Viscoelastic (VE) dampers are a kind of effective passive vibration control device and widely used to attenuate structural vibration. In this article, experimental study and multiscale modeling analysis on the VE damper for reducing wind-excited vibration are carried out. First, an experimental study on VE damper is conducted to reveal the dynamic properties of VE damper. The experimental results show that the dynamic properties of VE material are influenced by excitation frequency and insignificantly affected by displacement amplitude, and the VE material has good energy dissipation capacity. Second, the damping mechanism of VE damper is analyzed from micro-perspectives by considering the influence of cross-linked and free molecular chain networks. Then, a novel type spherical chain network model based on the chain network microstructure is proposed. The proposed model is verified by comparing the experimental data and the mathematical results, which indicates that the proposed model can accurately describe the dynamic properties of VE damper affected by different temperatures, frequencies, and displacements.