• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.169-175
• /
• 2019

Recently, two unique high rise buildings have been designed and constructed in Korea. The two buildings, which consist of mega braces and mega columns, are 70-story, 105-story high rise buildings. Through two external structural frame systems, it will be analyzed mechanical and structural characteristic mega column and mega brace system in this report. Particularly, the joint has been studied through the analytical method based on the load transfer mechanism at the point where a mega brace and mega column meets.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.555-562
• /
• 2016

Seismic design of braced frames that simultaneously considers economic issues and structural performance represents a rather complicated engineering problem, and therefore, a systematic and well-established methodology is needed. This study proposes a multi-objective seismic design method for an inverted V-braced frame with suspended zipper struts that uses the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II(NSGA-II). The structural weight and the maximum inter-story drift ratio as the objective functions are simultaneously minimized to optimize the cost and seismic performance of the structure. To investigate which of strength- and performance-based design criteria for braced frames is the critical design condition, the constraint conditions on the two design methods are simultaneously considered (i.e. the constraint conditions based on the strength and plastic deformation of members). The linear static analysis method and the nonlinear static analysis method are adopted to check the strength- and plastic deformation-based design constraints, respectively. The proposed optimal method are applied to three- and six-story steel frame examples, and the solutions improved for the considered objective functions were found.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.367-388
• /
• 2016

Eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) represent an attractive lateral load resisting steel system to be used in areas of high seismicity. In order to assess the likely damage for a given intensity of ground shaking, fragility functions can be used to identify the probability of exceeding a certain damage limit-state, given a certain response of a structure. This paper focuses on developing a set of fragility functions for EBF structures, considering that damage can be directly linked to the interstorey drift demand at each storey. This is done by performing a Monte Carlo Simulation of an analytical expression for the drift capacity of an EBF, where each term of the expression relies on either experimental testing results or mechanics-based reasoning. The analysis provides a set of fragility functions that can be used for three damage limit-states: concrete slab repair, damage requiring heat straightening of the link and damage requiring link replacement. Depending on the level of detail known about the EBF structure, in terms of its link section size, link length and storey number within a structure, the resulting fragility function can be refined and its associated dispersion reduced. This is done by using an analytical expression to estimate the median value of interstorey drift, which can be used in conjunction with an informed assumption of dispersion, or alternatively by using a MATLAB based tool that calculates the median and dispersion for each damage limit-state for a given set of user specified inputs about the EBF. However, a set of general fragility functions is also provided to enable quick assessment of the seismic performance of EBF structures at a regional scale.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.173-190
• /
• 2015

This study presents an analytical investigation on the seismic response of a medium-rise buckling-restrained braced frame (BRBF) under the near-fault ground motions. A seven-story BRBF is designed as per the current code provisions for five different combinations of brace configurations and beam-column connections. Two types of brace configurations (i.e., Chevron and Double-X) are considered along with a combination of the moment-resisting and the non-moment-resisting beam-to-column connections for the study frame. Nonlinear dynamic analyses are carried out for all study frames for an ensemble of forty SAC near-fault ground motions. The main parameters evaluated are the interstory and residual drift response, brace displacement ductility, and plastic hinge mechanisms. Fragility curves are developed using log-normal probability density functions for all study frames considering the interstory drift ratio and residual drift ratio as the damage parameters. The average interstory drift response of BRBFs with Double-X brace configurations significantly exceeded the allowable drift limit of 2%. The maximum displacement ductility characteristics of BRBs is efficiently utilized under the seismic loading if these braces are arranged in the Double-X configurations instead of Chevron configurations in BRBFs located in the near-fault regions. However, BRBFs with the Double-X brace configurations exhibit the higher interstory drift and residual drift response under near-fault ground motions due to the formation of plastic hinges in the columns and beams at the intermediate story levels.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.375-388
• /
• 2022

Nibellen structural system is a novel resilient bracing system based on the application of Bellville disks and Nitinol rods. The cyclic behavior of Nibellen assembly was obtained, and the design equations were developed based on the available literature. Seismic performance of the system was then studied analytically. Two groups of buildings with different lateral force resisting systems were designed and studied: one group with the Nibellen system, and the other with the special concentrically braced frame system. Each building group consisted of 5-, 10-, and 15-story buildings. The Design-Base-Event (DBE) and Maximum Considered Event (MCE) were considered as the seismic hazard, and a suite of seven ground motions were scaled accordingly for response history analyses. Finally, the resiliency of the buildings was studied by obtaining the functionality curve of the buildings before and after the seismic event. The construction cost of the 5-story building with Nibellen bracing system increased but the post-earthquake cost decreased significantly. The application of Nibellen system in the 10- and 15-story buildings reduced both the construction and repair costs, considerably. Resiliency of all the buildings was improved when Nibellen system was used as the lateral force resisting system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.45 no.3
• /
• pp.455-466
• /
• 2022

Despite the considerable lateral stiffness and strength of the Concentrically Braced Frame (CBF), it suffers from low ductility and low seismic dissipating energy capacity. The buckling of the diagonal members of the CBF systems under cyclic loading ended up to the shortcoming against seismic loading. Comprehensive researches have been performing to achieve helpful approaches to prevent the buckling of the diagonal member. Among the recommended ideas, metallic damper revealed a better success than other ideas to enhance the behavior of CBFs. While metallic dampers improve the behavior of the CBF system, they increase constructional costs. Therefore, in this paper, a new steel damper with flexural mechanism is proposed, which is investigated experimentally and numerically. Also, a parametrical revision was carried out to evaluate the effect of thickness, slenderness ratio, angle of the main plate, and height of the main plates on the proposed damper. For the parametrical study, 45 finite element models were analyzed and considered. Experimental results, as well as the numerical results, indicated that the proposed damper enjoys a stable hysteresis loop without any degradation up to a high rotation equal to around 31% that is significantly considerable. Moreover, it showed a suitable performance in case of ductility and energy dissipating. Besides, the necessary formulas to design the damper, the required relations were proposed to design the elements outside the damper to ensure the damper acts as a ductile fuse.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.917-937
• /
• 2015

During a seismic event, a considerable amount of energy is input into a structure. The law of energy conservation imposes the restriction that energy must either be absorbed or dissipated by the structure. Recent earthquakes have shown that the use of concentric bracing system with their low ductility and low energy dissipation capacity, causes permanent damage to structures during intense earthquakes. Hence, engineers are looking at bracing system with higher ductility, such as chevron and eccentric braces. However, braced frame would not be easily repaired if serious damage has occured during a strong earthquake. In order to solve this problem, a new bracing system an off-centre bracing system with higher ductility and higher energy dissipation capacity, is considered. In this paper, some numerical studies have been performed using ANSYS software on a frame with off-centre bracing system with optimum eccentricity and circular element created, called OBS_C_O model. In addition, other steel frame with diagonal bracing system and the same circular element is created, called DBS_C model. Furthermore, linear and nonlinear behavior of these steel frames are compared in order to introduce a new way of optimum performance for these dissipating elements. The obtained results revealed that using a ductile element or circular dissipater for increasing the ductility of off-centre bracing system and centric bracing system is useful. Finally, higher ductility and more energy dissipation led to more appropriate behavior in the OBS_C_O model compared to DBS_C model.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.445-454
• /
• 2001

This paper is to study elasto-plastic behavior of shear deformed braced frames. Two types of frames are considered , X-type and K-type. The slenderness ratio has been used in the parametric study. The stress-strain curve is assumed tri-linear model, and considered the strain hardening range. The finite difference method is used to solve the load-displacement relationship of the braced frames. For the elastic slope and maximum load, experimental results are compared with theoretical results and its difference remains less than 10%. Therefore suggested method in this paper is reasonable.

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

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.50 no.1
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2014

In this paper, overstrength, ductility and response modification factors are calculated for frames braced with a different type of buckling restrained braces, called reduced yielding segment BRB (Buckling Restrained Brace) in which the length of its yielding part is reduced and placed in one end of the brace element in comparison with conventional BRBs. Forthermore, these factors are calculated for ordinary BRBF and the results are compared. In this regard incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method is used for studying 17 records of the most known earthquakes happened in the world. To do that, the considered buildings have different stories and two bracing configurations: diagonal and inverted V chevron, the most ordinary configurations of BRBFs. Static pushover analysis, nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis and linear dynamic analysis have been performed using OpenSees software. Considering the results, it can be seen that, overstrength, ductility and response modification factors of this type of BRBF(Buckling Restrained Braced Frame) is greater than those of conventional types and it shows better seismic performance and also eliminates some of conventional BRBF's disadvantages such as low post-yield stiffness.