Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:8635–8648 DOI 10.1007/s13369-014-1460-5 RESEARCH ARTICLE - CIVIL ENGINEERING Study of Nonlinear Fluid Viscous Dampers Behaviour in Seismic Steel Structures Design Abdelouahab Ras · Nadir Boumechra Received: 26 April 2014 / Accepted: 30 September 2014 / Published online: 13 November 2014 © King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals 2014 Abstract For a seismic increased protection, new technolo- gies have been developed, among these technologies there is the “passive energy dissipation devices”. The absorption of the seismic input energy in the buildings and reducing its damage are the main objectives of these devices. This study will focus on the seismic design of structures with supple- mental fluid viscous dampers device. A 3D numerical inves- tigation is done considering the seismic response of a twelve- storey steel building moment frame with diagonal FVD that have nonlinear force versus velocity behaviour. Fast nonlin- ear analysis of Boumerdes earthquake (Algeria, May 2003) is considered for analysis and calculation using SAP2000 soft- ware and comparisons between linear-, nonlinear-damped and unbraced structures are shown in a tabulated and graphi- cal format. The results of the various alternatives studied were discussed and the conclusions showed the important contri- bution of nonlinear FVD to improve the dissipative capacities of the structure without increasing its stiffness in a signifi- cant way which contributes to reduce the quantity of steel necessary for its general stability. Keywords Steel structure · Energy dissipation · Nonlinear fluid viscous damper · Earthquake A. Ras (B ) · N. Boumechra EOLE, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Tlemcen, BP 230, Tlemcen, Algeria e-mail: ouahab_ras@yahoo.fr 1 Introduction The integrity and serviceability of the steel multi-storey buildings structures against natural hazard such as earthquake were a challenge among structural engineers and researches. The major concern in the design of theses structures is to have enough lateral stability to resist wind and seismic forces. There are different systems to limit the lateral drift. Among these systems, there is the combination of structural steel frames with passive energy dissipation provided by fluid vis- cous dampers (FVD). The use of this device is now becom- ing cost-effective solution to improve seismic performance of existing as well as new buildings. The concept of supplemental dampers added to a structure assumes that the structural performance can be improved if a portion of the input energy from a transient will be absorbed, not by the structure itself, but rather by supplemental damp- ing devices. This approach of seismic energy dissipation is 123