Experimental Evaluation of Steel Moment Resisting Frames with a Nonlinear Shear Fuse

This paper presents the experimental investigation of an innovative energy dissipation system in steel moment resisting frames. In the proposed system, a replaceable beam with a smaller cross-section than that of the main beam is placed at the mid span of the beam designed to act as a shear fuse. This shifts the location of the plastic hinging from the end of the beam to the middle since the shear fuse yields in shear prior to the flexural yielding of the main beam. This system eliminates the need to comply with the rigorous limitation on the beam span-to-depth ratio that is proposed by seismic design codes to ensure the formation of plastic hinges at the two ends of the beam. Moreover, this system enjoys an increase in the amount of dissipated seismic energy and a more stable hysteresis behavior. Finally, the system increases the resilience of the building as the shear fuse is readily replaceable after an earthquake.