Experimental study of steel slit damper for passive energy dissipation

This paper summarizes the development of a new steel energy dissipative device designed for earthquake protection of structures. The Steel Slit Damper (SSD) is fabricated from a standard structural wide-flange section with a number of slits cut from the web, in a vierendeel truss arrangement. The device is a weld-free design, thereby eliminating the uncertainties and difficulties encountered in in situ welding. Energy is dissipated through flexural yielding of the vierendeel’s web members when the device is subjected to inelastic cyclic deformation. The performance of the device was verified by nine tests and the effects of geometrical parameters were investigated. Experiments showed that the device exhibited stable hysteresis with excellent energy dissipation and ductility. The device yielded at small angular distortion and is thus expected to dissipate energy early in an earthquake. The structural characteristics of the device are readily determined from fundamental engineering principles, thus the design can be easily modified or extended to suit particular structural requirements.