Low cyclic fatigue and hysteretic behavior of U‐shaped steel dampers for seismically isolated buildings under dynamic cyclic loadings

Energy dissipation devices are necessary for base‐isolated buildings to control the deformation in the isolation system and to dissipate the earthquake‐induced energy. U‐shaped steel dampers (also known as U‐dampers) dissipate energy through plastic deformation of specially designed U‐shaped steel elements. This type of device can be installed at several locations in the isolation system. U‐dampers have been widely used in Japan for different types of isolated structures, such as hospitals, plants and residential buildings, since the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. Previous research has used static tests to estimate the performance of U‐dampers. However, the ultimate plastic deformation capacities and hysteretic behaviors of full‐scale U‐dampers under dynamic excitations still remain unclear. In addition, it is unclear whether the initial temperature has an effect on the hysteretic behavior and plastic deformation capacity of U‐dampers. In this paper, two series of dynamic loading tests of U‐dampers were conducted to evaluate the issues described earlier. The major findings of the study are (i) the loading speed has little effect on the plastic deformation capacity of U‐dampers; (ii) method to evaluate the ultimate plastic deformation capacities of U‐shaped steel dampers of different sizes is established using a Manson–Coffin relation‐based equation that is based on the peak‐to‐peak horizontal shear angle γ_t, which is defined as the lateral deformation amplitude (peak‐to‐peak amplitude) divided by the height of the dampers; (iii) the loading rate and the initial temperature have a minimal effect on the hysteretic behavior of the U‐dampers; and (iv) a bilinear model is proposed to simulate the force‐deformation relationships of the U‐dampers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.