• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• 제37권3호
• /
• pp.341-351
• /
• 2020

Steel plate shear wall with self-centering energy dissipation braces (SPSW-SCEDB) is a lateral force-resisting system that exhibits flag-shaped hysteretic responses, which consists of two pre-pressed spring self-centering energy dissipation (PS-SCED) braces and a wall plate connected to horizontal boundary elements only. The present study conducted a series of cyclic tests to study the hysteretic performances of braces in SPSW-SCEDB and the effects of braces on the overall hysteretic characteristics of this system. The SPSW-SCEDB with PS-SCED braces only exhibits excellent self-centering capability and the energy loss caused by the large inclination angle of PS-SCED braces can be compensated by appropriately increasing the friction force. Under the combined effect of the two components, the SPSW-SCEDB exhibits a flag-shaped hysteretic response with large lateral resistance, good energy dissipation and self-centering capabilities. In addition, the wall plate is the primary energy dissipation component and the PS-SCED braces provide supplementary energy dissipation for system. The PS-SCED braces can provide up to 90% self-centering capability for the SPSW-SCEDB system. The compressive bearing capacity of the wall plate should be smaller than the horizontal remaining restoring force of the braces to achieve better self-centering effect of the system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• 제47권4호
• /
• pp.523-537
• /
• 2023

This paper proposed a new self-centering brace (SCB), which consists of four post-tensioned (PT) high strength steel strands and energy absorbing steel plate (EASP) clusters. First, analytical equations were derived to describe the working principle of the SCB. Then, to investigate the hysteretic performance of the SCB, four full-size specimens were manufactured and subjected to the same cyclic loading protocol. One additional specimen using only EASP clusters was also tested to highlight the contribution of PT strands. The test parameters varied in the testing process included the thickness of the EASP and the number of EASP in each cluster. Testing results shown that the SCB exhibited nearly flag-shape hysteresis up to expectation, including excellent recentering capability and satisfactory energy dissipating capacity. For all the specimens, the ratio of the recovered deformation is in the range of 89.6% to 92.1%, and the ratio of the height of the hysteresis loop to the yielding force is in the range of 0.47 to 0.77. Finally, in order to further understand the mechanism of the SCB and provide additional information to the testing results, the high-fidelity finite element (FE) models were established and the numerical results were compared against the experimental data. Good agreement between the experimental, numerical, and analytical results was observed, and the maximum difference is less than 12%. Parametric analysis was also carried out based on the validated FE model to evaluate the effect of some key parameters on the cyclic behavior of the SCB.

• 한국지진공학회논문집
• /
• 제23권3호
• /
• pp.159-167
• /
• 2019

2016 Gyeongju and 2017 Pohang earthquakes led Koreans to acknowledge that the Korean peninsula is not an earthquake-free zone anymore. Among various buildings crucial to after-shock recovery, general hospital buildings, especially existing old ones, are very significant so seismic retrofitting of those must be an important issue. Self-centering energy dissipative(SCED) brace is one of retrofitting methods, which consists of tendon with restoring force and friction device capable of dissipating seismic energy. The strength of the SCED brace is that the tendon forces a structure to go back to the original position, which means residual drift can be negligible. The residual drift is a very important parameter to determine usableness of general hospitals after shock. To the contrary, buckling-restrained braces(BRB) are also a very effective way to retrofit because they can resist both compressive and tensile, but residual drift may exist when the steel core yields. On this background, the seismic retrofitting effect of general hospitals reinforced with SCED braces was investigated and compared to that of the BRD in this study. As a result, although the floor acceleration cannot be reduced, the story drift and residual drift, and the shear demand of walls significantly decreased. Consequently, seismic retrofitting by SCED braces are very effective for domestic low-rise general hospitals.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• 제71권6호
• /
• pp.683-697
• /
• 2019

The reinforced concrete (RC) structures usually suffer large residual displacements under strong motions. The large residual displacements may substantially reduce the anti-seismic capacity of structures during the aftershock and increase the difficulty and cost of structural repair after an earthquake. To reduce the adverse residual displacement, several self-centering energy dissipation braces (SCEBs) have been proposed to be installed to the RC structures. To investigate the seismic responses of the RC structures with SCEBs under the earthquake excitation, an extended Bouc-Wen model with degradation and self-centering effects is developed in this study. The extended model realized by MATLAB/Simulink program is able to capture the hysteretic characteristics of the RC structures with SCEBs, such as the energy dissipation and the degradation, especially the self-centering effect. The predicted hysteretic behavior of the RC structures with SCEBs based on the extended model, which used the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) for parameter identification, is compared with the experimental results. Comparison results show that the predicted hysteretic curves can be in good agreement with the experimental results. The nonlinear dynamic analyses using the extended model are then carried out to explore the seismic performance of the RC structures with SCEBs. The analysis results demonstrate that the SCEB can effectively reduce the residual displacements of the RC structures, but slightly increase the acceleration.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• 제21권4호
• /
• pp.863-882
• /
• 2016

This study aims to introduce a new bracing system by which even super-wide frames with large openings can be braced. The proposed system, hereafter called Cable-Pulley Brace (CPB), is a tension-only bracing system with a rectilinear configuration. In CPB, a wire rope passes through a rectilinear path around the opening(s) and connects the lower corner of the frame to its opposite upper one. CPB is a secondary load resisting system with a nonlinear-elastic hysteretic behavior due to its initial pre-tension load. As a result, the required energy dissipation would be provided by the MRF itself, and the main intention of using CPB is to contribute to the initial and post-yield stiffness of the whole system. Using a stiffness calibration technique, optimum placement of the CPBs is discussed to yield a uniform displacement demand along the height of the structure. A displacement-based design procedure is proposed by which the MRF with CPB can be designed to achieve a uniform distribution of inter-story drifts with predefined values. Obtained results indicated that CPB leads to significant reductions in maximum and residual deformations of the MRF at the expense of minor increase in the maximum base shear and developed axial force demands in the columns. In the case of a typical 5-story residential building, compared to SMRF system, CPB system reduces maximum amounts of inter-story and residual drifts by 35% and 70%, respectively. Moreover, openings of the frame are not interrupted by the CPB. This is the most appealing feature of the proposed bracing system from architectural point of view.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제16권5호
• /
• pp.589-599
• /
• 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.