Abstract
Along the subduction-zone of the western Japanese islands, large earthquakes are expected occur around the middle of this century, and long-period ground motions will reach major urban areas, shaking high-rise buildings violently. Since some old high-rise buildings were designed without considering long-period ground motions, reinforcing such buildings is an important issue. An effective method to reinforce existing high-rise buildings is installing additional dampers. However, a problem with ordinary dampers is that they require reinforcement of surrounding columns and girders to support large reaction forces generated during earthquake ground motion. To solve this problem, a deformation-dependent oil damper was developed. The most attractive feature of this damper is to reduce the damping force at the moment when the frame deformation comes close to its maximum value. Due to this feature, the reinforcement of columns, girders, and foundations are no longer required. The authors applied seismic retrofitting with a deformation-dependent oil damper to an existing 54-story office building (Shinjuku Center Building) located in Shinjuku ward, Tokyo, in 2009 to suppress vibration under the long period earthquake ground motions. The seismic responses were observed in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, and it is clarified that the damping ratio was higher and the response lower by 20% as compared to the building without dampers.