Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo Signal Analysis for Damage Evaluation of Metallic Slit-Plate Hysteretic Dampers

This paper proposes a pulse-echo Ultrasonic Testing (UT) methodology to quantify the damage of hysteretic dampers subjected to cyclic loadings. Energy dissipation is known as an innovative strategy for the protection of buildings against earthquakes. It consists of installing special devices called dampers in the construction, which are entrusted to dissipate most of the energy input by the earthquake, thus keeping the main structure basically undamaged. In particular, the hysteretic dampers dissipate the input energy through plastic deformations in their metallic parts. Several moderate ground motions would not exhaust the capacity of the dampers, but they cause damage—plastic deformations in the device. Therefore, continuous or periodic inspections of the damper are required in order to decide upon its eventual replacement. In this particular work, several hysteretic dampers made of stainless steel were subjected to different patterns of low-frequency cyclic loads that caused diverse levels of damage. Each damper underwent pulse-echo UT before and after the cyclic loading. Spectral energy of the echo signals was properly calculated at each damage level in order to define a reliable damage index. The new index has been compared with a well-established mechanical damage index, ID, previously proposed by the authors. A successful correlation was observed, making the pulse-echo UT technique promising for this particular application