It's important to determine an appropriate ratio of horizontal force shared by dampers and piers when a vibration controlled bridge is designed by using hysteretic dampers. However, there is no guideline to show how to make an effective decision on the dampers. In this paper, a trial was made to propose an approach for design practice based on analytical study.
A SDOF system model was used for nonlinear analysis on various conditions of piers. Among the analytical results, the hysteretic energy absorbed by dampers and the maximum response displacements were focused, with which the appropriate damping force was suggested. Further, an approach to decide the damping force is proposed, which should be helpful for engineering practice.