Theoretical and experimental study of new type of mild steel plate damper with opening

A new type of high performance mild steel plate damper with opening was designed and manufactured for structure vibration control. The damper dissipated vibration energy through plastic bending deformation of the core plates. First, stress distribution on the core plate was studied by finite element analysis. Then, formulas of the main performance parameters were derived by theoretical methods. Finally, monotonic and cyclic loading tests were carried out to evaluate the hysteretic performance of the damper. The results show that the drum-shaped opening contributes to the uniformity of stress distribution on the core plate without reducing the yield force. The formulas of the main performance parameters can effectively reflect the working performance of the damper. The damper has full hysteresis loops and the equivalent damping ratio can be in excess of 30% at large displacement range. Therefore, the damper exhibits good energy dissipation capacity and low-cycle fatigue performance.