On the cyclic response of two common steelwork members conceived as hysteretic devices for steel bracings

Several technical solutions have been developed and are currently available on the market to realise dissipative devices to be employed in steel bracing systems. They are characterised by different geometrical materials, configurations and energy dissipation mechanisms, based on yielding under either shear, bending or torsion actions. This paper investigates the performance of two cost-competitive devices obtained through conventional steelwork procedures, which can be employed as link elements on Y-shaped eccentric braces (EB), widely adopted especially for seismic retrofitting of existing structures. After a description of such devices, the key results obtained in recent tests carried out at the Laboratory Material testing and Structures of the University of Salerno is reported. Particularly, the results of cyclic tests carried out according to two different experimental protocols are considered to determine the low-cycle fatigue curve which fully describes their performance under cyclic actions and can be properly employed in seismic design of steel bracings equipped with such devices