Preliminary Study on the Damping Effect of a Lateral Damping Buffer under a Debris Flow Load

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 7; no. 2; p. 201
• Main Authors: Lu, Zheng, Yang, Yuling, Lu, Xilin, Liu, Chengqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 2017
• Subjects: buffer; Buffers; Buildings; Damping; Debris; debris flow; Detritus; Devices; Disasters; Emergency preparedness; Energy dissipation; Equations of motion; Feasibility studies; Impact damage; impact test; Impact tests; Landslides & mudslides; Mitigation; numerical simulation; parametric study; Shock absorbers; Structural damage; Vibration
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app7020201

Simulating the impact of debris flows on structures and exploring the feasibility of applying energy dissipation devices or shock isolators to reduce the damage caused by debris flows can make great contribution to the design of disaster prevention structures. In this paper, we propose a new type of device, a lateral damping buffer, to reduce the vulnerability of building structures to debris flows. This lateral damping buffer has two mechanisms of damage mitigation: when debris flows impact on a building, it acts as a buffer, and when the structure vibrates due to the impact, it acts as a shock absorber, which can reduce the maximum acceleration response and subsequent vibration respectively. To study the effectiveness of such a lateral damping buffer, an impact test is conducted, which mainly involves a lateral damping buffer attached to a two-degree-of-freedom structure under a simulated debris flow load. To enable the numerical study, the equation of motion of the structure along with the lateral damping buffer is derived. A subsequent parametric study is performed to optimize the lateral damping buffer. Finally, a practical design procedure is also provided.