Earthquakes have serious destructive effects on building structures, and effective seismic design is the key to building design. In order to reduce the damage of earthquakes to building structures, seismic design of buildings is based on improved viscous dampers. First, the displacement seismic design was studied and a displacement-based structural seismic model was constructed. In addition, analyzing traditional viscous dampers, an improved viscous damper is adopted based on it. Through equivalent damping expression, a displacement seismic model based on the improved viscous damper is constructed. Finally, two targets, frequent and rare earthquakes, were selected for experimental analysis. In frequent earthquake experiments, the improved viscous damper structure increased the shock absorption rate by 35.65 % compared to the no-structure design. In the shear force comparison, the maximum shear force of the improved viscous damper structure in the HB wave X direction is 2186 KN, which is the smallest shear force among the three structural designs. In a rare earthquake experiment, the maximum value of the floor shear force in the X-direction of the Humbolt bay wave of the proposed improved viscous damper structure was 8696 KN. Compared with other structures, the floor shear force was the smallest. In the comparison of floor displacements, the maximum inter-story displacement in the Humbolt bay wave Y-direction of the proposed improved viscous damper structure is 162 mm, which is the smallest inter-story displacement compared with other structures. In addition, the structure apex displacement was also compared. The structure apex displacement value of the improved viscous damper structure was lower than that of other structures and was in the slight damage range. The overall seismic effect was significantly better than other structural designs. The research content is conducive to optimizing the application effect of viscous dampers and provides technical reference for the seismic design of building structures.
