Cette thèse est concernée par le contrôle frontière de l’équation d’onde unidimensionnelle, qui peut être utilisée pour modéliser une corde (comme une corde de guitare). L’objectif est d’agir à une frontière pour contrôler et stabiliser l’autre frontière qui est considérée comme une condition aux frontières avec une dynamique instable. Cette thèse suggère des réponses aux deux questions suivantes: Considérons que la condition à la frontière de dynamique instable a des paramètres inconnus. Une loi de contrôle adaptatif non linéaire est-elle toujours efficace, si l’amortissement visqueux pris égal à zéro pour sa conception n’est plus négligé? Comment peut-on prendre en compte l’amortissement dans le domaine afin de stabiliser l’équation d’onde soumise à des conditions aux frontières dynamiques? Cette thèse suggère une méthode pour effectuer une analyse de Lyapunov afin de prouver la robustesse, vis à vis d’une erreur de modèle, d’une loi de contrôle adaptatif non linéaire particulière comme réponse à la première question. Puis, en utilisant une technique de backstepping à dimension infinie, nous développons une loi de contrôle par rétroaction qui stabilise exponentiellement l’équation d’onde considérée. / This thesis is concerned by the boundary control of the one dimensional wave equation, which can be used to model a string (like a guitar string). The objective is to act at one boundary to control and stabilize the otherboundary which is considered to be an unstable dynamic boundary condition. This thesis suggests answers to both following questions:Consider that the unstable dynamics boundary condition has some unknown parameters. Is a nonlinear adaptive control law still performing efficiently, if the viscous damping taken equal to zero for its design is no longer neglected?How can we take into account the in-domain damping in order to stabilize the wave equation subject to dynamic boundary conditions?This thesis suggests a method to derive a Lyapunov analysis in order to prove the robustness mismatch ofparticular nonlinear adaptive control law as the answer of the first question. Then using infinite dimensionalbackstepping technique we develop feedback control law that exponentially stabilize the considered wave equation.

Submitted by Willian Minnemann Kuhnert null (willian.kuhnert@feb.unesp.br) on 2016-08-29T20:53:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 VERSAO_FINAL_WILLIANMK.pdf: 7510529 bytes, checksum: d0f36cb6fb5aeb748d7d26333a6c853c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-08-31T12:32:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 kuhnert_wm_me_bauru.pdf: 7510529 bytes, checksum: d0f36cb6fb5aeb748d7d26333a6c853c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-31T12:32:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 kuhnert_wm_me_bauru.pdf: 7510529 bytes, checksum: d0f36cb6fb5aeb748d7d26333a6c853c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-19 / Fundação para o Desenvolvimento da UNESP (FUNDUNESP) / O isolamento de vibração é a técnica mais utilizada atualmente para a proteção de mecanismos e estruturas que sofrem excitação, seja ela por choque/impacto, seja ela harmônica. Este trabalho adiciona ao isolador de vibração comum, composto por molas e amortecedores, um elemento conhecido como inerter, que recentemente tem chamado bastante a atenção da comunidade científica, e também, separadamente, adiciona amortecedores não lineares, com o intuito de avaliar a influência destes elementos no isolamento. As curvas de transmissibilidade obtidas, que indicam a performance do isolamento à excitação harmônica, para os isoladores com inerter são comparadas à de um isolador comum composto somente por uma mola, e entre elas, enquanto que as curvas obtidas para os isoladores com amortecedores não lineares são comparadas entre si e à de um isolador comum com amortecimento linear. Os resultados obtidos mostram que a adição do inerter aos isoladores de vibração pode ser muito benéfica para o isolamento em determinadas faixas de frequência, mas em outras não, e tais faixas dependem de como o isolador é construído. Além disso, os isoladores com inerter são benéficos principalmente para sistemas subamortecidos. Os isoladores subamortecidos com inerter apresentaram características de isolamento diferentes uns dos outros, o que os leva a serem aplicados em diferentes situações. Os resultados obtidos para os isoladores com amortecedores não lineares mostraram que tais sistemas também podem melhorar ou piorar o isolamento em determinadas faixas de frequência quando comparados à um isolador com amortecimento linear. / The vibration isolation is currently the most used technique for protecting mechanisms and structures which are under shock/impact or harmonic excitation. This work presents to the common vibration isolator, consisted by springs and dampers, an element known as inerter, which recently has took great attention in the scientific community, and also presents the use of non-linear dampers to analyze the influence of these elements on isolation. The transmissibility curves obtained, which indicate the performance of the isolation for systems under harmonic excitation, for the isolators with the inerter element are compared with the spring-damper isolator frequency response as well the isolators with non-linear damping. The results obtained show that the addition of the inerter element can be beneficial for the isolation performance in a frequency range, but degrades the high frequency isolation, and they depend on how the isolator is built. Besides, the isolators with inerter are beneficial mainly for underdamped systems. The different underdamped systems with inerter presented unique isolation characteristics. The results obtained for the isolators with non-linear dampers presented that such systems can also improve the isolation in certain frequency ranges when compared to an isolator with linear damping. / FUNDUNESP: 110/2013-CCp/PIB

The purpose of this thesis is to implement and test a semi-active damping system based on a concept from an earlier thesis. The project includes implementation of mechanical, hydraulic and electronic hardware, aswell as controller software. The idea is to measure the movements of the vehicle chassis and based on these measurements set the damping torque using hydraulics. To be able to develop, test and evaluate the system, realistic input data must be available. To acquire such data, driving trials have been conducted on a variety of tracks. The first part of the system is the sensors that measure chassis movements. Both accelerometers and a gyro has been used. To remove drift and high frequency vibrations, the signals are filtered. The suggested controller from the earlier thesis requests damping torque based on the dampers vertical velocity. When accelerometer signals are integrated, measurement and rounding errors causes drift in the velocity. To compensate for this, a floating average is calculated and used. The main hydraulic component is a pressure reduction valve that controls the pressure inside the damper. Higher pressure will give higher damping torque. The reaction speed of the system is mostly depending on the hydraulic components. It is important to know the time delay from a change in the valve control signal, to when the actual pressure in the damper has been reached. Tests have shown that a large step, going from 10 Bar to 60 Bar takes approximately 46ms, and that a small step from 1 Bar to 20 Bar takes 63ms. The valve is faster when higher pressure levels are requested. In addition to the hydraulic response time the delay through the signal filters, measured to about 14ms, must be added. The sensors are affected by vibrations. If these can be reduced, the digital filters can be made less sharp with a lower filter delay as result. It is also important to have a good control computer so that large rounding errors in the filter calculations can be avoided. This would greatly decrease drift in the integrated velocity.

L’alimentation électrique des trains s’effectue en général par une interface pantographecaténairereprésentant un système mécanique couplé complexe. Les phénomènes dynamiques intervenantdans l’interaction entre le pantographe et la caténaire sont encore mal connus. Par ailleurs, le comportementdynamique du système est très variable car sensible à de nombreux paramètres. La premièrecontribution de cette thèse est de proposer une analyse détaillée de l’interaction dynamique pantographecaténaireen étudiant en particulier la réponse dynamique du pantographe à la géométrie de la caténaireainsi que les propagations, réflexions et transmissions des ondes dans cette dernière. Il a ainsi été démontréque la coïncidence spatiale, temporelle ou fréquentielle de ces différents phénomènes est à l’originede la majorité des variations des quantités d’intérêt. Par ailleurs, l’étude des ondes a montré que lespendules entourant le poteau avaient une importance particulière dans l’interaction dynamique et que lesparamètres tels que le rapport des impédances dynamiques et la somme des vitesses des ondes dans lescâbles étaient des variables dimensionnantes dans la caténaire. La seconde contribution a été de réduireles principales incertitudes épistémiques liées au modèle telles que l’amortissement dans la caténaire, laraideur de contact et la taille des éléments. La dernière contribution était d’implémenter des paramètresvariables dans le modèle en utilisant les mesures disponibles. À partir de ce modèle aléatoire, les incertitudesont été classées en utilisant les indices de Sobol sur des critères géométriques et dynamiques.L’absence de corrélation entre les critères géométriques et dynamique observée a des conséquences notablessur la politique de maintenance. Enfin, le grand nombre d’études de sensibilités réalisés a permisde souligner la maturité de l’outil de simulation et de proposer des orientations pour les travaux futurs pourla conception, maintenance ou homologation de pantographes ou de caténaires / In railways, electrical current is generally collected by the train through a complex coupledmechanical system composed of a pantograph and a catenary. Dynamic phenomena that occur duringtheir interaction are still not fully understood. Furthermore, the system behaviour is sensitive to numerousparameters and thus highly variable. The first contribution of this thesis is a detailed analysis of thepantograph-catenary dynamic interaction separating phenomena due to the dynamic response of the pantographto the catenary geometry from wave propagations, reflections and transmissions that occur in thecatenary. The coincidence of frequencies or characteristic times is then shown to explain most variationsin the quantities of interest. Moreover, droppers surrounding the mast have been shown to be particularlyimportant in dynamic interaction. Ratio of wire impedances and sum of wave velocities also appeared tobe dimensioning quantities for catenary design. The second contribution was to reduce epistemic uncertaintylinked with model parameters such as catenary damping, contact stiffness and element size. Thefinal contribution was to use the model in a configuration with random parameters. An initial step was tostatistically characterise physical catenary parameters using available measurements. From this randommodel, ranking of uncertainties using Sobol indices on static and dynamic criteria was shown to be possible.An absence of correlation between geometric and dynamic criteria was also found, which has notableimplications for maintenance policies. The high number of sensitivity studies also gave the occasion tohighlight the maturity of simulation tool and propose directions for further work on design, maintenance orcertification of pantographs and catenaries.

Corrélation entre les propriétés structurales et magnétiques des couches minces et nanostructures de Co₂FeAl Co₂FeAl (CFA) est un alliage Heusler très attractif pour les applications en spintronique. Ses propriétés magnétiques et structurales dépendent fortement des orientations cristallines et de la qualité des interfaces. Ce travail de thèse a porté sur les effets de l'épaisseur (dCFA), du type de substrat (MgO, Si et SrTiO₃ (STO)) ainsi que de la température de recuit (Ta) sur ces propriétés. Les analyses structurales ont montré que les couches déposées sur les substrats MgO et STO croissent avec épitaxie contrairement au cas de Si. Lorsque dCFA et Ta diminuent, l’ordre chimique évolue de la phase moyennement ordonnée B2 vers la phase plus désordonnée A2, quel que soit le substrat. Les mesures de résonance ferromagnétique (FMR) révèlent que les couches sur MgO et STO présentent une superposition d'anisotropies planaires uniaxiale et d’ordre 4, alors que seule une faible anisotropie uniaxiale est présente pour les couches CFA déposées sur Si. Cette anisotropie d’ordre 4 a été directement reliée à la structure cristalline de ces couches. Les mesures FMR et de diffusion Brillouin de la lumière ont mis en évidence la présence d’une grande anisotropie uniaxiale perpendiculaire négative, liée à l’interface CFA/MgO, qui augmente avec 1/dCFA et avec Ta. Les mécanismes de relaxation de l’aimantation ont été soigneusement étudiés et des coefficients d'amortissement de Gilbert de 0.0011 ont été mesurés, validant ainsi l’intérêt porté à ces alliages pour les applications dans les dispositifs à base de transfert de spin. Enfin, l’étude de réseaux de lignes submicroniques à base des couches minces de CFA a révélé une quantification des ondes de spin liée à la largeur finie des lignes. / ACorrelation between structural and magnetic properties of Co₂FeAl thin films and nanostructures Co₂FeAl (CFA) is a very attractive Heusler alloy for spintronic applications. Their structural and magnetic properties depend strongly on the crystalline orientations and the interfaces quality. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is the study effects of the film thickness (dCFA), the substrate (MgO, Si and SrTiO₃(STO)) as well as the annealing temperature (Ta) on these properties. The structural analysis revealed a good epitaxial growth for films deposited on MgO and STO, in contrast to the Si substrate. The chemical order varies from the partially ordered B2 phase to the disordered A2 phase as dCFA or Ta decreases, regardless of the substrate. The ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements show the superposition of a uniaxial and fourfold anisotropies for films grown on MgO and STO and only a weak uniaxial anisotropy for the samples grown on Si. The fourfold anisotropy is directly correlated to the crystal structure of the samples. The FMR and Brillouin light scattering measurements reveal the presence of a large negative perpendicular uniaxial anisotropy induced by CFA/MgO interface, which increases with 1/dCFA and with Ta. The relaxation mechanisms have carefully been studied and Gilbert damping coefficients of 0.0011 have been measured making CFA as a potential candidate for spin transfer torque-based devices. Finally, the study of submicron arrays of stripe obtained by patterning of the continuous CFA films reveals a spin waves quantization due to the finite stripes width.

Honeycomb-cored sandwich structures are widely used in transport for their high strength-to-mass ratio. Their inherent high stiffness and lightweight properties make them prone to high vibration cycles which can incur deleterious damage to transport vehicles. This PhD thesis investigates the performance of a novel passive damping treatment for honeycomb-cored sandwich structures, namely the Double Shear Lap-Joint (DSLJ) damper. It consists of a passive damping construct which constrains a viscoelastic polymer in shear, thus dissipating vibrational energy. A finite element model of such DSLJ damper inserted in the void of a hexagonal honeycomb cell is proposed and compared against a simplified analytical model. The damping efficiency of the DSLJ damper in sandwich beams and plates is benchmarked against that of the Constrained Layer Damper (CLD), a commonly used passive damping treatment. The DSLJ damper is capable of achieving a higher damping for a smaller additional mass in the host structure compared to the optimised CLD solutions found in the literature. The location and orientation of DSLJ inserts in honeycomb sandwich plates are then optimised with the objective of damping the first two modes using a simple parametric approach. This method is simple and quick but is not robust enough to account for mode veering occurring during the optimisation process. A more complex and computationally demanding evolutionary algorithm is subsequently adopted to identify optimal configurations of DSLJ in honeycomb sandwich plates. Some alterations to the original algorithm are successfully implemented for this optimisation problem in an effort to increase the convergence rate of the optimisation process. The optimised designs identified are manufactured and the modal tests carried out show an acceptable correlation in the trends identified by the numerical simulations, both in terms of damping per added mass and natural frequencies.

The Caribbean steelpan is a pitched percussion instrument that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the Second World War. Despite several research initiatives to improve the making of this relatively new instrument, several areas remain unaddressed. This thesis presents new approaches to help improve the making of the instrument. These approaches are situated in the production, vibration and material aspect of the steelpan. A novel sheet forming technology termed Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is applied to the production of miniature steelpan dishes. The thickness distribution in the wall of the ISF dishes is compared to the wall thickness distribution in a traditionally formed steelpan dish and a wheeled dish. Unlike traditional forming and wheeling, ISF produces stretching in only a portion of the walls of the formed dishes. Multi-pass ISF is used to extend the stretched zone but this extension is minimal. A break even analysis is also applied to investigate the fiscal viability of ISF application to the production of miniature and full size steelpan dishes. The application of ISF to steelpan making is found to be commercially profitable but could be jeopardised by the tuning stage of the steelpan making process. A preliminary study on the effect of impact on tone stability is conducted on a pair of notes on a fullsize steelpan and detuning is found more likely to occur by repeated impact of the note at its centre. Mode confinement in test-pans is also investigated. ISF is used to produce miniature test-pans with test-notes that are geometrically identical to notes on full size pans. It is possible to confine modes by varying the curvature of the bowl surrounding the test-note. The number of localised modes in the test-note increases as the radius of curvature of the surrounding bowl increases. The natural frequency of the first confined mode in the test-notes is sensitive to material springback in ISF and the mechanism of confinement appears to be due to the change in geometry that occurs between the flat test-note region and the bowl wall. This control of mode confinement may find use in future efforts to completely or partially automate the steelpan making process. Material damping and mechanical properties in low-carbon steel used to produce steelpans are researched. Damping and mechanical properties are extracted from low-carbon steel that is subjected to identical stages to the steelpan production process. Material damping trends suggest that an annealing temperature between 300°C and 400°C would be appropriate for the heat treatment of steelpans. Air-cooled and water-quenched low-carbon specimens exhibit comparable damping trends. Hardness increases in cold formed low-carbon specimens is attributed to strain hardening and not strain ageing. Investigation of damping trends and mechanical properties in ultra low bake-hardenable and interstitial-free steels reveals that a wider range of low-carbon steels may be suitable for steelpan making.

There are many ways in which the surrounding media, such as air between an oscillating MEMS structure and a fixed substrate, can affect the dynamic response of a MEMS transducer. Some of these effects involve dissipation while others involve energy transfer. Transverse oscillations of a planar structure can cause a lateral air flow in small gaps that results in pressure gradients. The forces due to the built–up pressure are always against the vibration of the structure and have characteristics of damper and stiffener. In this work, we study the squeeze film phenomenon due to the interaction between the air–film and the structure in the presence of restrictive flow boundary conditions. It is known that the squeeze film damping due to the air trapped between the oscillating MEMS structure and the fixed substrate often contributes to maximum energy dissipation. We carry out an analysis to estimate damping and stiffness in cases with restrictive flow boundaries in dynamic MEMS devices. While the studies reported in the present work address fluid flow damping with restrictive flow boundaries, the analysis of air-flow shows another important phenomenon of enhanced air-spring stiffness. This study is discussed separately in the context of spring stiffening behavior in MEMS devices exhibiting squeeze film phenomenon. First a theoretical framework for modeling squeeze film flow is established and this is followed with analytical and numerical solutions of problems involving squeeze film phenomenon. Modeling of squeeze film effects under different flow conditions is carried out using Reynold’s equation. The problem of squeeze film damping in MEMS transducers is more involved due to the complexities arising from different boundary conditions of the fluid flow. In particular, we focus our attention on estimation of damping in restricted flow boundaries such as only one side vented and no side vented passive boundary conditions. Damping coefficient for these cases are extracted when the fluid is subjected to an input velocity profile according to a specific mode shape at a given frequency of oscillation. We also explain the squeeze film flow in restricted boundaries by introducing the concept of passive and active boundary conditions and analyzing the pressure gradients which are related to the compressibility of the air in the cavity. Passive boundary conditions is imposed by specifying the free flow or no flow along one of the edges of the cavity, whereas, active boundary condition is imposed by the velocity profile being specified at the interface of the cavity with the oscillating structure. Some micromechanical structures, such as pressure sensors and ultrasound transducers use fully restricted or closed boundaries where the damping for such cases, even if small, is very important for the determination of the Q–factor of these devices. Our goal here is to understand damping due to flow in such constrained spaces. Using computational fluid dynamics (ANSYS–FLOTRAN), the case of fully restricted boundaries is studied in detail to study the effect of important parameters which determines the fluid damping, such as flow length of the cavity, air–gap height, frequency of oscillations and the operating pressure in the cavity. A simulation strategy is developed using macros programming which overcomes some of the limitations of the existing techniques and proves useful in imposing a non–uniform velocity and the extraction of damping coefficient corresponding to the flexibility of the structure in specific oscillation modes. Rarefaction effects are also accounted for in the FEM model by introducing the flow rate coefficient, or, alternatively using the concept of effective viscosity. The analysis carried out for the fully restricted case is motivated by the analytical modeling of squeeze film phenomenon for a wide range of different restricted boundaries, and analyzing the resulting pressure gradient patterns. We show that significant damping exists even in fully restricted boundaries due to lateral viscous flow. This is contrary to known reported results, which neglect damping in such cases. The result indicates that in fully restrictive fluid flow boundaries or in a closed cavity, air damping cannot be neglected at lower oscillation frequencies and large flow length to air-gap ratio if the active boundary has a non-uniform velocity profile. Analysis of air-flow in the case of restricted flow boundaries shows another important phenomenon of enhanced air-spring stiffness. It is found that fluid film stiffness has a nonlinear dependence on various parameters such as air-gap to length ratio, fluid flow boundary conditions and the frequency of oscillation. We carry out analysis to obtain the dynamic response of MEMS devices where it is significantly affected by the frequency dependent stiffness component of the squeeze film. We show these effects by introducing frequency dependent stiffness in the equation of motion, and taking examples of fluid boundary conditions with varying restriction on flow conditions. The stiffness interaction between the fluid and the structure is shown to depend critically on stiffness ratios, and the cut-off frequency. It is also inferred that for a given air–gap to flow length ratio, the spring behaviour of the air is independent of the flow boundary conditions at very high oscillation frequencies. Hence, we limit our focus on studying the effect of fluid stiffness in the regime where it is not fully compressible. For non-resonant devices, this study finds its utility in tuning the operating frequency range while for resonant devices it can be useful to predict the exact response. We show that it is possible to design or tune the operating frequency range or shift the resonance of the system by appropriate selection of the fluid flow boundary conditions. The emphasis of the present work has been toward studying the effect of squeeze film flow on dynamic response of MEMS structures with restrictive flow boundary conditions. Estimation of energy dissipation due to viscous flow cannot be ignored in the design of MEMS which comprise of restricted flow boundaries. We also remark that modeling of a system with squeeze film flow of the trapped air in terms of frequency independent parameters, viz. damping and stiffness coefficient, is unlikely to be very accurate and may be of limited utility in specific cases. Although the central interest in studying squeeze film phenomenon is on the damping characteristics because of their direct bearing on energy dissipation or Q–factor of a MEMS device, the elastic behaviour of the film also deserves attention while considering restrictive flow boundary conditions.

In this thesis, a new method is followed to design an active control system which imparts viscoelastic phenomenological damping in an elastic structure. Properties of a hypothetical viscoelastic system are used to design an active feedback controller for an undamped structural system with distributed sensor, actuator and controller. The variational structure is projected on a solution space of a closed-loop system involving a weakly damped structure with distributed sensor and actuator with controller. These controller components assign the phenomenology based on internal strain rate damping parameter of a viscoelastic system to the undamped elastic structure. An elastic cantilever beam with proportional-derivative controller and displacement feedback is considered in all the design formulations. In the first part of the research, a closed-loop control system is designed using two time domain modern control system design methods, pole placement and optimal pole placement, which use viscoelastic damping parameter. Equation of motion of a viscoelastic system is employed to synthesize the desired closed-loop poles. Desired poles are then assigned to an elastic beam with an active controller. Time domain finite element formulation is used without considering actuator-sensor dynamics and the effect of transducer locations. Characteristics of closed-loop system gains are found as a function of desired damping parameter and realization of damping have been analyzed with closed loop system pole positions. The next part consists of a novel frequency domain active control system design to impart desired viscoelastic characteristics, which uses spectral method and the exact dynamic stiffness matrix of the system. In the first case, a sub-optimal local control system for a cantilever beam, with collocated actuator and sensor is designed. In the second case, a closed-loop local controller for an elastic system with non-collocated transducers is designed. Next, a global controller for non-collocated arrangement of sensor-actuator is designed by considering all the degrees-of freedom in the system, which leads to solving an eigenvalue problem. The reason for the failure of the collocated arrangement in global control is also explained. In this novel control system design method transducer dynamics and locations are considered in the formulation. In frequency domain design, the frequency responses of the system show satisfactory performance of the closed-loop elastic system. The closed-loop system is able to reproduce the desired viscoelastic characteristics as targeted in the design. Optimal and sub-optimal system gains are found as functions of transducer locations, transducer properties, excitation frequency and internal strain rate damping parameter of a hypothetical viscoelastic system. Performance of the closed loop system is established by comparing the specific damping capacity of the hypothetical viscoelastic system with that of the closed-loop elastic system. The novel frequency domain method is simple, accurate, efficient and can be extended to complex structures to achieve desired damping. The method can be a better way of designing structures with variable stiffness which has research potential in designing morphing airplanes/spacecrafts. The ultimate goal of this research is that, if this design method is applied to practical applications such as aircraft wings, where vibration is undesirable, one would be able to achieve strength and desired damping characters simultaneously.

This thesis presents the results obtained from a preliminary investigation into the potential application of the friction damping concept to wood structures to improve their seismic response. Sliding friction devices which contain heavy duty brake lining pads have been proposed in order to enhance a wood structure's seismic performance. The devices are mounted onto a structure's shearwalls to dissipate seismic energy input during the wall's deformation in an earthquake. Prototypes of the four friction damping devices were tested to examine their hysteretic behaviour. Conventional full scale, 2.44 x 2.44 m (8 x 8 ft) timber shearwalls, typical of ones used in residential and light-commercial building applications, and ones retrofitted with the friction damping devices were tested on a shake table. Three set of tests were conducted. They involved loading the walls under unidirectional racking, static-cyclic and simulated earthquake loads. Test results from the two types of shearwalls were compared against each other and against the findings from the computer programs SADT and FRICWALL. SADT is a finite elements program which computes the load-deformation behaviour of shearwalls. FRICWALL is an inelastic time-history dynamic model which computes the response time-history of a shearwall under a simulated seismic event. The cyclic tests of the friction damping devices showed that they exhibited very stable and non-deteriorating hysteretic behaviour. The shake table tests of the full scale timber shearwalls showed that the friction damped walls were stiffer, can sustain an average of 23.7 % higher racking load and dissipate an average of 42.9 % more energy than the conventional ones before a ductile failure. Failure in the conventional walls was brittle. These results were in agreement with the SADT findings. Under slow cyclic loads, they dissipated more energy, but because their overall hysteretic behaviour was still pinched, they were just as inefficient as the conventional walls at dissipating energy. On the average, their seismic performance was only marginally better than that of the conventional wall, with an average drop of 9.6 % in peak wall deflection. This is far short of the average of 29.5 % computed by FRICWALL. Detailed analysis of the results show that due to bending in the framing members of the shearwall, the load necessary to cause slippage of the friction devices was not achieved until wall deflections in the order of 25.4 mm (1.0 in) was reached. Since only at the peak or near-peak excitation levels of an earthquake did shearwall deflections surpass this magnitude, the devices were not able to contribute to the energy dissipation of the shearwalls during the majority portion of a seismic event. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate