Vibration measurement of a steel building with viscoelastic dampers using acceleration sensors

With the rapid development of sensor technology, wireless measurement systems are applied to various fields, such as safety monitoring and health evaluation of existing buildings. This study aims to develop a vibration measurement based on wireless acceleration sensors. This paper presents a simple response evaluation method of a steel structure with a stud-type damper composed of viscoelastic material and two steel columns. The series of measurements consists of micro-tremor measurements and seismic motion monitoring before and after seismic retrofitting. The changes in vibrational properties indicate the damping effect. To obtain the vibrational properties of the structure correctly, we investigated the natural frequency, deformation mode, and restoring force characteristics. The effectiveness of using a wireless system in the evaluation of existing buildings and the feasibility of the evaluation method can be obtained using the results of this experiment. Despite being the result of only one structure, this simple vibration measurement method's effectiveness is demonstrated.