An innovative I‐shaped low‐yield steel shear damper directly connected to the concentrically braced frame

Abstract

Shear dampers are known as famous seismic passive energy devices due to their suitable performance against seismic loading to improve the behavior of Concentrically Braced Frames (CBFs). The CBF system suffers from low ductility due to its compression member's susceptibility to buckling. By adding the shear dampers directly to the diagonal element members of the CBF, the dampers prevent the bucking of the CBF and improve the behavior of the system. Although the dampers pertain to high energy dissipation capacity, they reduce the ultimate strength and elastic stiffness of the system. To overcome the shortcoming, in this paper, utilizing low‐yield point steel to create an I‐shaped damper is proposed and investigated parametrically and numerically by the Finite Element Method (FEM). This damper is directly connected to the CBF's diagonal member. The results indicated that by using the proposed I‐shaped damper, the ultimate strength, elastic stiffness, and energy dissipation of the system are enhanced. Also, the damper prevents the bucking of the CBF, which causes the damages to be limited in the damper, and the CBF to remain in the elastic zone. Also, required equations were suggested to design the system.