Passive energy dissipation characteristics of yielding shear panel device produced from steel and stainless steel

Yielding Shear Panel Device (YSPD) is a newly developed passive energy dissipation device that exploits the stable hysteretic shear energy dissipation characteristics of a metal plate. YSPD is a simple device, which is composed of a thin metal diaphragm plate welded within a small segment of a square hollow section (SHS). The device is designed to be fitted on to a structure in such a way that it automatically gets activated to absorb excessive energy during the horizontal excitation as a result of any seismic activity. Performance of YSPDs produced from ordinary carbon steel has recently been evaluated both experimentally and numerically. Stainless steel offers significantly higher ductility, which makes stainless steel favourable for use in energy absorption. The current research exploits already validated numerical models for steel YSPDs to examine the characteristics of YSPDs produced from stainless steel. Two stainless steel alloys austenitic 1.4301 and lean duplex 1.4162 grades are used in the developed finite element models using ANSYS. Obtained results show that stainless steel could be considered as a viable option for manufacturing passive energy dissipation devices to mitigate damages due to seismic excitations. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK.