Ductile-jointed connections, which generally require some form of supplementary energy dissipation toalleviate displacement response, typically employ mild steel energy dissipation devices. These devices runthe risk of low-cycle fatigue, are effective only for peak cycles that exceed prior displacements, are proneto buckling, and may require replacement following an earthquake. This study presents an experimentalinvestigation employing an alternative to mild steel: a high force-to-volume (HF2V) class of damper-basedenergy dissipation devices. Tests are performed on a near full-scale beam–column joint subassemblyutilizing externally mounted compact HF2V devices. Two configurations are considered: an exterior jointwith two seismic beams and one gravity beam framing into a central column, and a corner joint withonly one seismic beam and one gravity beam framing into a column. Quasi-static tests are performed tocolumn drifts up to 4%. The experiments validate the efficacy of the HF2V device concept, demonstratinggood hysteretic energy dissipation, and minimal residual device force, allowing ready re-centring of thejoint. The devices dissipate energy consistently on every cycle without the deterioration observed in theyielding steel bar type of devices. The effectiveness of the HF2V devices on structural hysteretic behavioris noted to be sensitive to the relative stiffness of the anchoring elements, indicating that better efficiencywould be obtained in an embedded design.
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