Design and vibration mitigation performance of scissor-amplifying nodal damper

A scissor-amplifying nodal damper (SAND) based on viscoelastic material energy dissipation is proposed to address the insufficient energy dissipation of traditional dampers caused by limited deformation. The paper first presents the structural configuration and the energy-dissipation amplification mechanism of the SAND. Hyperelastic and viscoelastic constitutive models of the materials were derived from uniaxial tension tests and stress relaxation tests, with the viscoelastic model validated through plate-type damper experiments. Using finite-element analysis, the SAND’s energy-dissipation performance, optimal initial clamping angle, stress distribution and restoring force model were investigated. The results demonstrate that the SAND significantly outperformed conventional nodal dampers (NDs) in vibration reduction and energy-dissipation efficiency. Furthermore, the seismic performance of the SAND was evaluated under frequent and rare earthquake conditions. Under frequent earthquakes, the SAND achieved average reduction rates of approximately 33% (top floor displacement), 27.25% (inter-storey displacement) and 38.13% (base shear) compared with a ND. Under rare earthquakes, the reductions were even more pronounced, reaching 37.35%, 21.65% and 37.07%, respectively. In conclusion, the proposed SAND effectively enhances the energy-dissipation capacity of traditional node dampers, offering superior seismic mitigation performance.