DEVELOPMENT OF SUPERPLASTIC Zn-Al ALLOY SEISMIC DAMPER FOR TRADITIONAL WOODEN STRUCTURE

Abstract

As a new kind of seismic materials, superplastic Zn-Al alloy has been studied and proposed. This alloy has a few advantages such as low work-hardening rate and high ductility over a conventional seismic material, for instance, a low-yield-point steel.
In this work, a superplastic Zn-Al alloy seismic damper is developed to improve the seismic performance of traditional wooden structure. In order to verify the effect of developed dampers, fundamental performance tests and dynamic loading tests were carried out. Results of these tests indicate that this damper shows stable hysteresis loop from small to large deformation and a traditional wooden structure with this damper has large damping capacity.