Investigation on the performance of a new pure torsional yielding damper

A new type of pure torsional yielding damper made from steel pipe is proposed and introduced. The damper uses a special mechanism to apply force and therefore applies pure torsion in the damper. Uniform distribution of the shear stress caused by pure torsion resulting in widespread yielding along pipe and consequently dissipating a large amount of energy. The behavior of the damper is investigated analytically and the governing relations are derived. To examine the performance of the proposed damper, four types of the damper are experimentally tested. The results of the tests show the behavior of the system as stable and satisfactory. The behavior characteristics include initial stiffness, yielding load, yielding deformation, and dissipated energy in a cycle of hysteretic behavior. The tests results were compared with the numerical analysis and the derived analytical relations outputs. The comparison shows an acceptable and precise approximation by the analytical outputs for estimation of the proposed damper behavior. Therefore, the relations may be applied to design the braced frame system equipped by the pure torsional yielding damper. An analytical model based on analytical relationships was developed and verified. This model can be used to simulate cyclic behavior of the proposed damper in the dynamic analysis of the structures equipped with the proposed damper. A numerical study was conducted on the performance of an assumed frame with/without proposed damper. Dynamic analysis of the assumed frames for seven earthquake records demonstrate that, equipping moment-resisting frames with the proposed dampers decreases the maximum story drift of these frames with an average reduction of about 50%.