Based on the basic ideals of viscous damper

tuned mass damper and displacement enhancement

a series viscous mass damper is introduced in the present paper.Different from the traditional viscous mass damper in which the damping element and the mass element connect each other in a parallel way

a series way of connection is assumed

therefore it is named as series viscous mass damper

or SVMD.The concept of the enhancement of viscous mass is presented firstly

followed by the mechanical model of SVMD.The optimum design of SVMD is conducted

and the dynamic analysis in frequency domain is also carried out with different dampers to investigate the seismic response.An incremental dynamic analysis in time domain is conducted to study the seismic response of the single-degree-of-freedom system incorporating a SVMD

considering variable damping and different peak acceleration of ground motion

respectively.The results show that when the system is isolated by SVMD

the frequency range applicable for base-isolation of the SDOF system is wider than that of the system isolated by viscous damper or tuned viscous mass damper

and the transmissibility is lower than that of the system isolated by viscous damper.With equal displacement of isolation layer of the SDOF system

lower absolute acceleration response of the system and higher efficiency of energy dissipation of damper are obtained when it is isolated by a SVMD.