• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.200-207
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• 2002

Energy dissipation capacity and earthquake responses of steel structures installed with unbonded braces(UB) were investigated. Nonlinear dynamic time history analyses were carried out to investigate the seismic response of multi-story model structures with UB having various size and strength. Various techniques were applied to determine proper story-wise distribution of UB in multi-story structures. The analysis results show that the maximum displacements of structures generally decrease as the stiffness of UB increases. However there are cases that the maximum displacement and accumulated damage increases as the stiffness of UB increases, which needs to be checked before deciding proper amount of UB.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.327-341
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• 2016

This study addresses the effect of pre-stressed cables on a pre-stressed mega-braced steel frame through employing static analysis and pushover analysis. The performances of a pre-stressed mega-braced steel frame and a pure steel frame without mega-braces are compared in terms of base shear, ductility, and failure mode. The influence of the cable parameters is also analyzed. Numerical results show that cable braces can effectively improve the lateral stiffness of a pure frame. However, it reduces structural ductility and degenerates structural pre-failure lateral stiffness greatly. Furthermore, it is found that 20% fluctuation in the cable pretension has little effect on structural ultimate bearing capacity and lateral stiffness. As comparison, 20% fluctuation in the cable diameter has much greater impact.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.261-284
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• 2009

The seismic behavior of a framed structure with chevron-type buckling restrained braces was investigated and their behavior factors, such as overstrength, ductility, and response modification factors, were evaluated. Two types of structures, building frame systems and dual systems, with 4, 8, 12, and 16 stories were designed per the IBC 2003, the AISC LRFD and the AISC Seismic Provisions. Nonlinear static pushover analyses using two different loading patterns and incremental dynamic analysis using 20 earthquake records were carried out to compute behavior factors. Time history analyses were also conducted with another 20 earthquakes to obtain dynamic responses. According to the analysis results, the response modification factors turned out to be larger than what is proposed in the provision in low-rise structures, and a little smaller than the code-values in the medium-rise structures. The dual systems, even though designed with smaller seismic load, showed superior static and dynamic performances.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.571-579
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• 2014

The steel braces are used to control the lateral drift of high rise buildings. The braces are designed as tensile members since the braces consisted of slender member can not resist compressive loads by elastic buckling. To resolve this problem, a lot of research were performed to develop the non-buckling member. The force limiting device (FLD.) is one of them. The purpose of this study is the development of FLD. to prevent a elastic buckling for a slender member. The folded plate type is proposed to induce the yielding before occurring elastic buckling. In this study, member test and FEM analysis for proposed type were performed. Further, It is verified that the structure with FLD member is stable by high energy absorption. The proposed folded plate type FLD could be effective to preserve the compressive member from the elastic buckling.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.79-89
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• 2017

As a new type of energy dissipation component with excellent mechanical performance, the Buckling-Retrained Braces (BRBs) were gradually applied in retrofitting and improving seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures in China. In order to investigate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures retrofitted with BRBs, quasi-static test of two single-bay and 3-story reinforced concrete frames specimens was conducted and introduced in this paper. Two 1/2 scaled specimens were designed to reflect real prototype structure. For comparison, one control specimen was designed without BRBs, and the other specimen was retrofitted with BRBs. And particularly, for the specimen retrofitted with BRBs, the BRBs were eccentric layout instead of usually concentric or x-shaped layout, aiming to be more suitable for large-span frames. In the test, the failure mode, carrying capacity, deformability, ductility and energy dissipation ability of both two specimens were investigated. Based on the test results of the measured hysterical curves, skeleton curves, the seismic performances such as bearing capacity, plastic deformability, energy dissipation ability and ductility of two specimens were fully studied. And from the test results, it was indicated that the specimen retrofitted with BRBs showed much better seismic performance than the control specimen without BRBs, and the BRBs could effectively improve the seismic performance of the reinforced concrete frame. For the specimen retrofitted with BRBs, the BRBs firstly yielded before the beam-ends and the column-ends, and an expected yielding process or yielding mechanism as well as good seismic performance was obtained. For the specimens without BRBs, though the beam-ends yielded prior to the column-ends, the seismic performance was much poor than that of the specimen with BRBs.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.47-54
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• 2001

Unbond brace hysteretic dampers are generally used to prevent or decrease structural damage in building structures subjected to strong earthquake by its energy dissipating hysteretic behavior. In the study, a straightforward design procedure for unbond brace hysteretic dampers was developed. The required amount of equivalent damping to satisfy given performance acceptance criteria was obtained conveniently based on the capacity spectrum method without carrying out time-consuming nonlinear dynamic time history analysis. Then the size of the unbond braces is determined from the required equivalent damping. Parametric study has been performed for the design variables such as natural period, yield strength, the stiffness after the first yield stress of the unbond brace. The procedure was applied to 5-story and 10-story steel frames for verification of the proposed method. According to the earthquake time history analysis results, the maximum displacement of the model structure with unbond braces supplied in accordance with the proposed method corresponds well with the given target displacement.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.5 no.3 s.19
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• pp.71-78
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• 2004

In conventional method of supporting soil shuttering wall during excavation a system of struts and wales to provide cross-lot bracing is common in trench excavations and other excavations of limited width. This method, however, becomes difficult and costly to be adopted for large excavations since heavily braced structural systems are required. Another expensive and unsafe situations are expected when temporary struts must be removed for the construction of underground structures. This paper introduces innovative strut systems which can be used as permanent underground structures after its role as brace system to resist earth pressure during excavation phase. Underground structural system suggested from architect is checked against the soil lated pressures before the analysis of stresses developed from gravity loads. In this technology, named SPS(Struts as Permanent System), retaining wall is installed first and excavation proceeds until the first level of bracing is reached. Braces used as struts during excavation will serve as permanent girders when buildings are in operation. Simultaneous construction of underground and superstructure can proceeds when excavation ends with the last level of braces being installed. In this paper, construction sequence and the calculation concept are explained in detail with some photo illustrations. SPS technology was applied to three selected buildings. One of them was completed and two others are being constructed Many sensors were installed to monitor the behavior of retaining wall, braces as column in terms of stress change and displacement. Adjacent ground movement was also obtained. These projects demonstrate that SPS technology contributes to the speed as well as the economy involved in construction.

• 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.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.63-69
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• 2003

In this study seismic design procedure for buckling-restrained braced frame systems was proposed using hysteretic energy spectrum and accumulated ductility spectrum constructed from single degree of freedom systems. The hysteretic energy spectra and accumulated ductility spectra corresponding to target ductility ratio were constructed first. The cross-sectional area of braces required to meet a given target displacement was obtained by equating the hysteretic energy demand to the accumulated plastic energy dissipated by braces. Twenty earthquake records were utilized to construct the spectra and to verify the validity of the design procedure. According to analysis results of three- and eight-story buckling-restrained braced frame structures designed using the proposed method, the mean values for the top story displacement correspond well with the given performance target displacements. Also, the inter-story drifts turned out to be relatively uniform over the structure height, which is desirable because uniform inter-story drifts indicate uniform damage distribution. Therefore if was concluded that the proposed energy-based method could be a reliable alternative to conventional strength-based design procedure for structures with buckling-restrained braces.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.163-173
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• 2019

For Special Concentrically Braced Frame (SCBF), it is common that the damage concentrates at a certain story instead of spreading over all stories. Once the damage occurs, the soft-story mechanism is likely to take place and possibly to result in the failure of the whole system with more damage accumulation. In this study, we use a strongback column which is an additional structural component extending along the height of the building, to redistribute the excessive deformation of SCBF and activate more structural members to dissipate energy and thus avoid damage concentration and improve the seismic performance of SCBF. We tested one-third-scaled, three-story, double-story X SCBF specimens with static cyclic loading procedure. Three specimens, namely S73, S42 and S0, which represent different combinations of stiffness and strength factors ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ for the strongback columns, were designed based on results of numerical simulations. Specimens S73 and S42 were the specimens with the strongback columns, and S0 is the specimen without the strongback column. Test results show that the deformation distribution of Specimen S73 is more uniform and more brace members in three stories perform nonlinearly. Comparing Drift Concentration Factor (DCF), we can observe 29% and 11% improvement in Specimen S73 and S42, respectively. This improvement increases the nonlinear demand of the third-story braces and reduces that of the first-story braces where the demand used to be excessive, and, therefore, postpones the rupture of the first-story braces and enhances the ductility and energy dissipation capacity of the whole SCBF system.