• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.683-692
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• 2011

In piloti-type low-rise RC residential buildings, severe damages have been usually concentrated at piloti stories under the earthquake. In this study, a piloti story was retrofitted by installation of buckling-restrained braces (BRB's) to increase strength and stiffness of piloti story and by application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet on columns to avoid the brittle shear and axial failure of columns. To verify this retrofit performance, reversed cyclic lateral load tests were performed on 1:5 scale bare and retrofitted frames. The test results showed that yield strength (43.2 kN) appeared to be significantly larger than design value (30 kN) due to the increase of strength in the compression side, but the stiffness value (11.6 kN/mm) turned out to be approximately one-half of the design value (24.2 kN/mm). The reasons for this difference in stiffness were due to slippage at joint between the frame and the BRB's, displacement and rotation at footing. The energy absorption capacity of the retrofitted frame was 7.5 times larger than that of the bare frame. The change of the number of load cells under the footing from 2 to 1 reduced lateral stiffness from 11.6 kN/mm to 6 kN/mm, which was only three times larger than that of the bare frame (2.1 kN/mm).