Aaron Malatesta, P.E., is Director of Structural Engineering Services at Taylor Devices. Mr. Malatesta graduated from Stanford University with a Masters degree in Structural Engineering. Before joining Taylor Devices’, he practiced structural engineering for consulting firms focused on both buildings and transportation infrastructure. As a licensed professional engineer in the state of California, he has been involved in the design and retrofit of a number of different types of structures. His current tasks at Taylor Devices include leading the development of technical publications, management of research and development activities, and working with engineers to improve the performance of structures using viscous damping systems. He is actively involved in ASCE 7 and ASCE 41 committees for seismic isolation systems and energy dissipation devices.
Structural engineers have been using Taylor Devices’ viscous dampers to protect new and existing building structures from seismic excitation for over 25 years. There are a number of different types of damping applications and the primary objective of this presentation will be to demonstrate the basic principles for supplemental viscous damping and how they can be applied on any project. The presentation will include an overview of preliminary design concepts, simplified design procedures, viscous damper modelling, as well as post-processing of results. Several examples will be presented and alternative methods for construction detailing will be discussed.