• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.233-267
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• 2018

Conventional seismic design of concentrically braced frame (CBF) structures suggests that the gusset plate connecting a steel brace to beams and/or columns should be designed as non-dissipative in earthquakes, while the steel brace members should be designed as dissipative elements. These design intentions lead to thicker and larger gusset plates in design on one hand and a potentially under-rated contribution of gusset plates in design, on the other hand. In contrast, research has shown that compact and thinner gusset plates designed in accordance with the elliptical clearance method rather than the conventional standard linear clearance method can enhance system ductility and energy dissipation capacity in concentrically braced steel frames. In order to assess the two design methods, six cyclic push-over tests on full scale models of concentric braced steel frame structures were conducted. Furthermore, a 3D finite element (FE) shell model, incorporating state-of-the-art tools and techniques in numerical simulation, was developed that successfully replicates the response of gusset plate and bracing members under fully reversed cyclic axial loading. Direct measurements from strain gauges applied to the physical models were used primarily to validate FE models, while comparisons of hysteresis load-displacement loops from physical and numerical models were used to highlight the overall performance of the FE models. The study shows the two design methods attain structural response as per the design intentions; however, the elliptical clearance method has a superiority over the standard linear method as a fact of improving detailing of the gusset plates, enhancing resisting capacity and improving deformability of a CBF structure. Considerations were proposed for improvement of guidelines for detailing gusset plates and bracing members in CBF structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.273-291
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• 2020

Two-storey X-bracings are currently very popular in European practice, as respect to chevron and simple X bracings, owing to the advantages of reducing the bending demand in the brace-intercepted beams in V and inverted-V configurations and optimizing the design of gusset plate connections. However, rules for two-storey X braced frames are not clearly specified within current version of EN1998-1, thus leading to different interpretations of the code by designers. The research presented in this paper is addressed at investigating the seismic behaviour of two-storey X concentrically braced frames in order to revise the design rules within EN1998-1. Therefore, five different design criteria are discussed, and their effectiveness is investigated. With this aim, a comprehensive numerical parametric study is carried out considering a set of planar frames extracted from a set of structural archetypes that are representative of regular low, medium and high-rise buildings. The obtained results show that the proposed design criteria ensure satisfactory seismic performance.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.345-358
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• 2005

The response of single story buildings and other case studies are investigated to observe trends in response and to develop a better understanding of the impact of some design parameters on the seismic response of CBF. While it is recognized that many parameters have an influence on the behavior of braced frames, the focus of this study is mostly on quantifying energy dissipation in compression and its effectiveness on seismic performance. Based on dynamic analyses of single story braced frame and case studies, it is found that a bracing member designed with bigger R and larger KL/r results in lower normalized cumulative energy, i.e., cumulative compressive energy normalized by the corresponding tensile energy (${\sum}E_C/E_T$), in both cases.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.197-204
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• 2017

This paper aims to analyze the economic feasibility and investigate the possibility of elastic seismic design of wind-designed highrise concentrically braced frames considering change of mechanical properties of Korean steel under the strong wind and the low seismicity in Korea. To this end, first, highrise concentrically braced frames were designed considering strong wind load. And then, analyses of the economics of them were performed. The seismic performance evaluation of wind-designed highrise buildings was conducted using the response spectrum analysis procedure. Analysis results show that it is possible to save up to approximately 90% of the amount of steel on the 10% increase in steel strength without serviceability. However, with serviceability, the design sectional area of the steel with relatively high strength tends to increment considerably because of the lateral stiffness due to reduction of the inertia moment and so on. This point might apply to limitation of the steel with high tensile yield strength.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.163-177
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• 2020

Concentrically Braced Frames (CBFs) are commonly used in the construction of steel structures because of their ease of implementation, rigidity, low lateral displacement, and cost-effectiveness. However, the principal disadvantage of this kind of braced frame is the inability to provide deformation capacity (ductility) and buckling of bracing elements before yielding. This paper aims to present a novel Composite Buckling Restrained Fuse (CBRF) to be utilized as a bracing segment in concentrically braced frames that allows higher ductility and removes premature buckling. The proposed CBRF with relatively small dimensions is an enhancement on the Reduced Length Buckling Restrained Braces (RL-BRBs), consists of steel core and additional tensile elements embedded in a concrete encasement. Employing tensile elements in this composite fuse with a new configuration enhances the energy dissipation efficiency and removes the tensile strength limitations that exist in bracing elements that contain RL-BRBs. Here, the optimal length of the CBRF is computed by considering the anticipated strain demand and the low-cyclic fatigue life of the core under standard loading protocol. An experimental program is conducted to explore the seismic behavior of the suggested CBRF compare with an RL-BRB specimen under gradually increased cyclic loading. Moreover, Hysteretic responses of the specimens are evaluated to calculate the design parameters such as energy dissipation potential, strength adjustment factors, and equivalent viscous damping. The findings show that the suggested fuse possess a ductile behavior with high energy absorption and sufficient resistance and a reasonably stable hysteresis response under compression and tension.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.1121-1137
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• 2016

A large number of structure in the world were build with poor seismic details, with or without any lateral load resisting system like concentrically braced frames and steel plate shear walls. These structures can reveal deteriorating hysteretic behaviors with stiffness and strength degradation. Therefore, seismic retrofitting of such structures for drift control has vital importance. In this study a retrofit methodology has been developed, which involves diagonal bracing of steel frames with different cable arrangements. In the experimental and numerical program 5 different lateral load resisting system were tested and results compared with each other. The results indicated that multi-cable arrangements suggested in this study showed stable ductile behavior without any sudden decrease in strength. Due to the usage of more than one diagonal cable, fracture of any cable did not significantly affect the overall strength and deformation capacity of the system. In cable braced systems damages concentrated in the boundary zones of the cables and beams. That is why boundary zone must have enough stiffness and strength to resist tension field action of cables.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.231-248
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• 2012

This research aims to investigate the structural behavior of concentrically braced frames after element loss by performing nonlinear static and dynamic analyses such as Time History Analysis (THA), Pushdown Analysis (PDA), Vertical Incremental Dynamic Analyses (VIDA) and Performance-Based Analysis (PBA). Such analyses are to assess the potential and capacity of this structural system for occurrence of progressive collapse. Besides, by determining the Failure Overload Factors (FOFs) and associated failure modes, it is possible to relate the results of various types of analysis in order to save the analysis time and effort. Analysis results showed that while VIDA and PBA according to FEMA 356 are mostly similar in detecting failure mode and FOFs, the Pushdown Overload Factors (PDOFs) differ from others at most to the rate of 23%. Furthermore, by sensitivity analysis it was observed that among the investigated structures, the eight-story frame had the most FOF. Finally, in this research the trend of FOF and the FOF to critical member capacity ratio for the plane split-X braced frames were introduced as a function of the number of frame stories.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.317-335
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• 2016

Concentrically braced steel frames (CBFs) can be optimised during the seismic design process by using lateral loading distributions derived from the concept of uniform damage distribution. However, it is not known how such structures are affected by uncertainties. This study aims to quantify and manage the effects of structural and ground-motion uncertainty on the seismic performance of optimum and conventionally designed CBFs. Extensive nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed on 5, 10 and 15-storey frames to investigate the effects of storey shear-strength and damping ratio uncertainties by using the Monte Carlo simulation method. For typical uncertainties in conventional steel frames, optimum design frames always exhibit considerably less inter-storey drift and cumulative damage compared to frames designed based on IBC-2012. However, it is noted that optimum structures are in general more sensitive to the random variation of storey shear-strength. It is shown that up to 50% variation in damping ratio does not affect the seismic performance of the optimum design frames compared to their code-based counterparts. Finally, the results indicate that the ground-motion uncertainty can be efficiently managed by optimizing CBFs based on the average of a set of synthetic earthquakes representing a design spectrum. Compared to code-based design structures, CBFs designed with the proposed average patterns exhibit up to 54% less maximum inter-storey drift and 73% less cumulative damage under design earthquakes. It is concluded that the optimisation procedure presented is reliable and should improve the seismic performance of CBFs.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.589-599
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• 2019

Conventional buckling restrained braces used in concentrically braced frames are expected to yield in both tension and compression without major degradation of capacity under severe seismic ground motions. One of the weakness points of a standard buckling restrained braced frame is the low post-yield stiffness and thus large residual deformation under moderate to severe ground motions. This phenomenon can be attributed to low post-yield stiffness of core member in a BRB. This paper introduces a multi-core buckling restrained brace. The multi-core term arises from the use of more than one core component with different steel materials, including high-performance steel (HPS-70W) and stainless steel (304L) with high strain hardening properties. Nonlinear dynamic time history analyses were conducted on variety of diagonally braced frames with different heights, in order to compare the seismic performance of regular and multi-core buckling restrained braced frames. The results exhibited that the proposed multi-core buckling restrained braces reduce inter-story and especially residual drift demands in BRBFs. In addition, the results of seismic fragility analysis designated that the probability of exceedance of residual drifts in multi-core buckling restrained braced frames is significantly lower in comparison to standard BRBFs.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.135-156
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• 2014

In this research the effect of seismic design level as a practical approach for progressive collapse mitigation and reaching desired structural safety against it in seismically designed concentric braced frame buildings was investigated. It was achieved by performing preliminary and advanced progressive collapse analysis of several split-X braced frame buildings, designed for each seismic zone according to UBC 97 and by applying various Seismic Load Factors (SLFs). The outer frames of such structures were studied for collapse progression while losing one column and connected brace in the first story. Preliminary analysis results showed the necessity of performing advanced element loss analysis, consisting of Vertical Incremental Dynamic Analysis (VIDA) and Performance-Based Analysis (PBA), in order to compute the progressive collapse safety of the structures while increasing SLF for each seismic zone. In addition, by sensitivity analysis it became possible to introduce the equation of structural safety against progressive collapse for concentrically braced frames as a function of SLF for each seismic zone. Finally, the equation of progressive collapse safety as a function of bracing member capacity was presented.