Analysis, design and testing of an hourglass-shaped copper energy dissipation device

• ETP-copper is an interesting material for energy dissipation.
• ETP-copper can modeled using the Chaboche constitutive model.
• The Cu-BEDD undergoes more than 20 large cycles prior to failure.
• Isotropic hardening disappears after one cycle of bidirectional deformation.

The behavior of a bi-directional energy dissipation device made of copper was investigated. The development considered four phases: (1) characterization and numerical modeling of the cyclic plastic behavior of Electrolytic Tough Pitch copper using the Chaboche constitutive model; (2) generation of a finite element model including large deformations and the inelastic constitutive model of the material; (3) numerical design of the device using the response surface methodology; and (4) design and testing of two different proof-of-concept devices subjected to both, a unidirectional and a bi-directional displacement load path. The cyclic response of the device showed significant energy dissipation capacity even for very small deformations. It was also capable of sustaining 20 large cycles prior to failure. The numerical model used was capable of representing the cyclic response characteristics of the damper very accurately, and the proposed design process was validated using the measured response of the tested devices. It is concluded that annealed copper is an interesting material for energy dissipation and that the design procedure developed proved to be cost-effective and applicable to other metallic dampers.