Hysteretic model of stiffened shear panel dampers

A properly designed two-way stiffened (stiffened both in longitudinal and transverse directions) shear panel can sustain large deformation without pinching and consequent strength degradation. Hence it can be used as an effective passive energy dissipating damper (PEDD) in building and bridge structures to absorb seismic energy. In this Technical Note, a series of steel shear panels with 1, 2, or 3 two-way stiffeners has been analyzed under cyclic loading by the general-purpose finite element program ABAQUS, in which a modified two-surface model is incorporated to trace the material nonlinearity. Slenderness of web, R-w, is employed as a key parameter to investigate the hysteretic performance of stiffened shear panels. The sensitivities of the ratio of stiffener rigidity to optimum stiffener rigidity, gamma(s)/gamma(s)* the ratio of flange thickness to web thickness, t(f)/t(w), and aspect ratio, a, are also investigated. Finally, a simplified bilinear model for stiffened shear panels acting as a PEDD is presented in this Technical Note based on FEM results. The proposed model is expected to get use in the time-history analysis of engineering structures that employ the PEDD to mitigate seismic hazard.