Cyclic behavior of shear-and-flexural yielding metallic dampers

The energy dissipation potential of a metallic damper largely depends on the hysteretic response achieved due to the inelastic deformation of plates under either axial or flexural or shear loading. In this study, a passive energy dissipation device consisting of a series of steel plates capable of yielding in both flexure and shear has been experimentally investigated under cyclic loading. Two end plates of X-configuration are allowed to yield under flexural action, whereas a rectangular web plate of the device is allowed to dissipate energy through shear yielding. Three shear-and-flexural yielding damping (SAFYD) devices are studied by varying the size of both flexure and shear plates. The main parameters investigated are load-carrying capacity, hysteretic response, energy dissipation, equivalent viscous damping, and ductility. A finite element analysis has been carried out to predict the ultimate resistance and hysteretic response of the test specimen. The predicted results matched reasonably well with the test results. Finally, a design procedure has been proposed to proportion the flexure and shear plates of SAFYD devices for a given lateral load demand.