Design and experimental investigation of energy dissipating FRP box infill system

A conceptual design, fabrication, and testing of advanced Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) infill system are presented as a seismic retrofit strategy. Such a system is designed to have a FRP box infill system with passive energy constrained layers. The basic concept of the previous research (Gasparini et al, 1981) was considered herein and the configuration of this system is designed to have numerous energy dissipating composite box infill panels which are made of FRP box laminates and passive energy constrained damping layers combining polymer honeycomb and 3M viscoelastic solid materials at the interface between the FRP box laminates. Conceptually, the FRP box damping panels can be produced the damping through the cyclic shear straining of the interface damping layers and provide larger damping area than the FRP plate laminates(Aref and Jung, 2006). For the purpose of design and practical application, two important cases regarding both the ratio of effective combining composite materials and the behaviors of two different interface layers in the FRP box damping panels are investigated experimentally on the basis of the stiffness, strength, and energy dissipations. The prefabricated FRP box infill system holds a great promise for enhanced damping performance, the simplification of the construction process, and the reduction of time and cost when used for seismic retrofit applications.