Experimental and numerical study on the performance of a novel self-centering beam-column connection equipped with friction dampers

Regarding some major issues in the behavior of steel beam-column connections such as the existence of residual drifts, low energy dissipation, different behavior in hogging and sagging moments along with the complexity of constructional details, this paper introduces a novel selfcentering beam-column connection equipped with friction dampers. In this regard, two full-scale experimental specimens with two and four post-tensioned strands, were evaluated by application of a quasi-static cyclic loading protocol. Besides providing closed-form equations to estimate the forces of post-tensioned strands and the amount of connection moment, the considered finite element modeling procedure was validated using ABAQUS software. Then, the considered finite element models which meet the requirements of ACI318-19 and Eurocode3, were analyzed parametrically to study the effects of some important parameters such as the amount of strand post-tensioning and pin pre-tensioning forces, the strand diameter size along with the strand relative distance on the performance of the proposed connections. Based on the obtained results, it was observed that the proposed connection while needs less labor intensive and low installation costs, shows a stable flag-shaped hysteretic curve up to a drift of 7% without any residual rotation. Also, the required specifications to achieve the best performance of the proposed connection were introduced and the effect of variation of the considered important parameters on the energy dissipation capacity, rotational stiffness, strength and ductility of the connection was discussed. Finally, it can be concluded that the 2-strand and 4-strand connections provided the same amount of energy dissipation ratio and ductility, while the 4-strand connection had more rotational stiffness ratio and strength ratio.