Question

What are seismic dampers and why are they important?

Answer 1

The seismic dampers are mechanical devices that have the purpose to dissipate the kinetic energy from the seismic waves that are penetrating the structure of a building.

They are very import since they started to be used because they are able to minimize the damage to the buildings and avoid their destruction to a certain degree, depending of course on the strength of the seismic waves.

Before they were used, an earthquake that was not very strong was able to make huge damage on the buildings, and very often to totally destroy them. Since the introduction of the seismic dampers though, the buildings are able to withstand much bigger earthquakes without being damaged, which saves millions of lives every year, and also a lot of material damage is avoided.