Experimental investigation of the ductility and performance of steel rings constructed from plates

•Steel ring, a kind of energy dissipator, which is posed in a point of bracing is proposed.•Three experiments with different connection type have been studied on the ductility and dissipated energy of steel ring.•ANSYS software was used to model and validate the experimental data of steel ring.•The results show high ductility and suitable performance of steel ring under cyclic load.

Extensive research has been performed to increase the ductility of concentric braces over the past several decades. One method to increase the ductility is to use energy-dissipator members situated at the intersection of the braces. Along these lines, the usage of steel rings made of steel pipes as an energy dissipator has been studied analytically and numerically. These studies show that the brace with the steel ring exhibits a steady and wide hysteresis curve; in addition, the steel ring is easily positioned and replaced. Experimental observations show that the structural members of the bracing system remain in their elastic zones, except for the steel ring. In addition, the destruction was limited to the steel ring. As the variety of steel pipes forming the required steel rings are limited, this article describes an experimental investigation of three steel rings made of two half-rings. As the type of connection affects the ring performance, these experiments investigate the effects of different types of half-ring connections. To complete the investigation, some numerical studies have been performed using ANSYS software. The results of this investigation show that the hysteresis curve of the steel specimen made of steel plates is wide and that a tensile ductility factor of 8.68 is achieved.