Experimental Study on Mechanical Properties of Shear Square Section Steel Tube Dampers

Based on the excellent performance of shear metal dampers in building seismic capacity, the traditional shear metal damper was optimized. A double-sided shear steel tube damper with simple structure, easy replacement, and wide application is proposed. In order to study the influence of different design parameters on its seismic performance, taking the steel tube length, height, width, thickness, and connection mode as variables, five groups of 15 specimens were designed for experimental research, and the failure modes, characteristic loads and displacements, hysteretic curves, skeleton curves, stiffness degradation curves, and energy dissipation capacity of each specimen were analyzed in detail. The test results showed that the hysteretic curves of each specimen were full and that the energy dissipation capacity was good. The greater the thickness of the steel tube was, the greater the load-bearing capacity of the damper and the larger the hysteresis loop area were. The greater the width of the steel tube was, the greater the equivalent stiffness was. As displacement amplitude increased, the equivalent stiffness of the specimen showed a downward trend. The two connection modes had their own advantages and disadvantages, and a damper with reasonable connection form would need to be selected according to actual engineering needs.