Modal properties and seismic behaviour of buildings equipped with external dissipative pinned rocking braced frames

A parametric study is carried out to evaluate the influence of the added damping and of the braced frame stiffness on the modal properties and seismic response of a benchmark reinforced concrete frame retrofitted with the external dissipative towers. It is shown that the addition of the towers yields a regularization and reduction of the drift demand along the building height, but it may induce significant changes, not always beneficial, in the distribution of internal actions of the frame and in the absolute storey accelerations.