• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.83-91
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• 2009

Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) show good seismic behavior. They do not dissipate energy, however, when they are subjected to minor earthquakes or wind. Hybrid Buckling Restrained Braces (H-BRBs), which can improve the wind performance of the BRB system, are a kind of hybrid damper system composed of a viscoelastic damper and BRBs. In this paper, two H-BRB specimens with different cores were experimentally investigated to ensure the structural behavior of the H-BRB system in an elastic range. The axial deformation of the primary resisting system was compared with that of the secondary resisting system, and the equivalent damping ratio of the H-BRBs was estimated. It was concluded that H-BRBs with double shear dampers show good structural behavior and are applicable to tall buildings, to improve the building performance at a comfortable level.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.116-123
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• 2001

This paper represents results of an effort to seismically rehabilitate a 12-story nonductile reinforced concrete frame building. The frame located in the most severe seismic area, zone 4, is assumed to be designed and detailed for gravity load requirements only. Both pushover and nonlinear time-history analyses are carried out to determine strength, deformation capacity and the vulnerability of the building. The analysis indicates a drift concentration at the $1^{st}$ floor level due to inadequate strength and ductility capacity of the ground floor columns. The capacity curve of the structure, when superimposed on the average demand response spectrum for the ensemble of scaled earthquakes indicates that the structure is extremely weak and requires a major retrofit. The retrofit of the building is attempted using viscoelastic (VE) dampers. The dampers at each floor level are sized in order to reduce the elastic story drift ratios to within 1%. It is found that this requires substantially large dampers that are not practically feasible. With practical size dampers, the analyses of the viscoelastically damped building indicates that the damper sizes provided are not sufficient enough to remove the biased response and drift concentration of the building. The results indicate that VE-dampers alone are not sufficient to rehabilitate such a concrete frame. Concrete buildings, in general, being stiffer require larger dampers. The second rehabilitation strategy uses concrete shearwalls. Shearwalls increased stiffness and strength of the building, which resulted in reducing the drift significantly. The effectiveness of VE-dampers in conjunction with stiff shearwalls was also studied. Considering the economy and effectiveness, it is concluded that shearwalls were the most feasible solution for seismic rehabilitation of such buildings.