Development of steel dampers for bridges to allow large displacement through a vertical free mechanism

• Published in: Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 375 - 388
• Main Authors: Pan, Peng, Yan, Hong, Wang, Tao, Xu, Peizhen, Xie, Qiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration 01.09.2014; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bridges; Bridges (structures); Civil Engineering; Computer simulation; Control; Dampers; Displacement; Dynamical Systems; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earthquakes; Finite element method; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Numerical analysis; Seismic engineering; Seismic phenomena; Simulation; Structural engineering; Structural steels; Vibration; 垂直; 大排量; 数值分析方法; 机制; 桥梁钢; 简化设计方法; 自由; 阻尼器; large deformation; bridge; cyclic loading; steel damper; numerical simulation
• ISSN: 1671-3664; 1993-503X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11803-014-0249-6

Isolation bearings and dampers are often installed between piers and superstructures to reduce the seismic responses of bridges under large earthquakes. This paper presents a novel steel damper for bridges. The damper employs steel plates as energy dissipation components, and adopts a vertical free mechanism to achieve a large deformation capacity. Quasi-static tests using displacement-controlled cyclic loading and numerical analyses using a finite element program called ABAQUS are conducted to investigate the behavior of the damper, and a design methodology is proposed based on the tests and numerical analyses. Major conclusions obtained from this study are as follows： （1） the new dampers have stable hysteresis behavior under large displacements; （2） finite element analyses are able to simulate the behavior of the damper with satisfactory accuracy; and （3） simplified design methodology of the damper is effective.