THE DISSIPATIVE COLUMN AS A NEW STEEL DAMPER

A new replaceable hysteretic damper to better control seismic building damage, consisting of two adjacent steel vertical elements connected to each other with continuous mild/low strength steel shear links, is proposed and investigated in this study. New Dampers, called Dissipative Columns (DC), continuously linked with X-shaped steel plates, provide additional stiffness and damping to a lateral system by using a basic and minimally invasive construction element: the column. Work-ing in a way similar to coupled shear walls, the proposed element behavior is theoretically ana-lyzed at linear and non-linear ranges. The Dissipative Column has been conceived or as a device installed within a frame either external damper to provide macro-dissipation. In fact, considering different configurations, a parametric analysis is developed in order both to evaluate the effect of the main geometrical and structural parameters and provide the design capacity curves of this new damper. In particular, non-linear pushover and cyclic analyses have been carried out in ABAQUS in order to characterize the local and global behavior of the device. The DC can be considered a new damping device, easy to install in new as well as existing buildings in order to protect them from seismic damage.