An Innovative Steel Damper with a Flexural and Shear–Flexural Mechanism to Enhance the CBF System Behavior: An Experimental and Numerical Study

Abstract

An innovative passive energy damper is introduced and studied experimentally and numerically. This damper is designed as the main plate for energy absorption which is surrounded by an octagon cover. In addition to simplicity in construction, it can be easily replaced after a severe earthquake. Experimental test results, as well as finite element results, indicated that, by connecting the cross-flexural plate to the main plate, the mechanism of the plate was changed from flexural to shear. However, the cross_flexural plate always acts as a flexural mechanism. Changing the shear mechanism to a flexural mechanism, on the other hand, increased the stiffness and strength, while it reduced the ultimate displacement. Comparing the hysteresis curve of specimens revealed that models without cross_flexural plates had less strength and energy_dissipating capability than other models. Adding the flexural plate to the damper without connecting to the main plate improved the behavior of the damper, mainly by improving the ultimate displacement. Connecting the cross plate to the web plate enhanced the ultimate strength and stiffness by 84% and 3.9, respectively, but it reduced the ductility by 2.25. Furthermore, relationships were proposed to predict the behavior of the dampers with high accuracy.