(Experimental and Numerical Modeling of a Modified Lead Shear Damper (LSD

(This paper proposes a new type of low cost metallic yielding damper called Lead Shear Damper (LSD composed of two coaxial steel pipes where their interfacial gap is filled with pure lead. The LSD dissipates energy through shear plastic deformation of lead section due to the relative axial displacement of steel pipes. The proposed damper is a developed version of the existing one introduced by Curadelli and Riera which tolerates only 12 mm deformation back and forth under cyclic loading [1]. The current LSD can sustain deformations up to 35 mm back and forth with a negligible strength degradation. Three identical specimens are subjected to cyclic loading with different displacement rates to study the rate dependency effects. Moreover, three specimens with various thicknesses of lead section are tested to find its optimum thickness. A nonlinear finite element model (FEM) is used to verify experimental results.