Experimental Study of a New Bar Damper Device for Vibration Control of Structures Subjected to Earthquake Loads

ABSTRACT

A new yielding damper, called Bar Damper (BD), made of a number of solid bars sandwiched between two plates is introduced in this paper. Based on a simplified mechanical modeling, design parameters were formulated. The device is shown to have stable hysteretic behavior under cyclic loads. The device is capable of undergoing large displacements without significant strength and stiffness degradation. The slenderness ratio of the bars is a crucial design parameter controlling the effective stiffness and energy dissipation capacity of the dampers. Strength of the devices estimated from theoretical models developed herein is found to be consistent with experimental results.

KEYWORDS:

• Metallic Bar Damper
• Direction-Independent Damper
• Earthquake-Resistant Device
• Seismic Protection
• Structural Vibration Control
• Earthquake Engineering

Acknowledgment

The bar damper device has been patented by MyIPO (Malaysia Intellectual Property Organizations) under patent number PI 2016702928.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Ministry of Education, Malaysia (FRGS – Project No. FP004-2014B); Postgraduate Research Grant (PPP-Project No. PG177-2016A); and University of Malaya Research Grant (UMRG – Project No. RP004A-13AET). We thank the reviewers for their constructive comments which helped improve the manuscript.