Effects of Excitation Bandwidth on Damping Reduction Factor

In seismic codes, elastic response spectra are usually defined by adopting a conventional value for the damping ratio equal to 5%. Damping Reduction Factors (DRFs) are then introduced to account for the effect of damping values higher than the nominal 5%. In this framework, the main aim of the present study is to explore a new definition of DRF. The concept of stochastic response spectrum is used for predicting the earthquake response of a structural system by adopting the random vibration theory for nonstationary processes. The peak theory is finally used to determine the DRF.