THE DESCRIPTION AND MEASUREMENT OF NONLINEAR DAMPING IN STRUCTURES

This paper addresses the question of a description of the damping char acteristics inherent in real structures. A discussion of the mechanism s causing energy loss and the practicalities of measurement when the p arameter is not only nonlinear but also the forcing function and the r esponse are nonstationary is followed by some practical results obtain ed from very tall buildings. The random decrement signature is present ed as being particularly useful for the measurement of damping charact eristics under hostile loading regimes, and its use is demonstrated an d described.