USE OF DIFFERENT SHAPED STEEL SLIT DAMPERS IN BEAM TO COLUMN CONNECTIONS OF STEEL FRAMES UNDER CYCLING LOADING

Following the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes, extensive research was conducted on the use of various materials and systems that will absorb the earthquake effects within the structure itself in order to improve the behavior of the steel structures under seismic effects. In this study, the use of seismic dampers at beam-column joints of steel-framed structures to prevent damage to the structural members by absorbing the energy of the lateral loads was investigated. Thus, it will be possible for the steel-framed structures to be put into service right after a damaging earthquake by only replacing the dampers attached to the joints as no damage will occur to the beams and columns. For this purpose, as a first step, dampers with ductile behavior were chosen through preliminary tests. Consistent with the results of the preliminary tests, a total of six full-scale corner beam-column joint test specimens were produced. Five specimens were attached various types of dampers m different sizes and one reference specimen was designed with regular end-plate connection. After the evaluation of the test results, valuable data on the load carrying and energy consumption capacities, stiffness characteristics and the general behavior of the specimens were obtained. In the analytical part of the study, analyses of the selected specimens were performed through ANSYS finite elements software package. The analytical and experimental results were compared and have been found very consistent with each other.