• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.703-731
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• 2013

In order to verify the applicability of buckling restrained braces (BRB's) and fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets to the seismic strengthening of a low-rise RC building having the irregularities of a soft/weak story and torsion at the ground story, a series of earthquake simulation tests were conducted on a 1:5 scale RC building model before, and after, the strengthening, and these test results are compared and analyzed, to check the effectiveness of the strengthening. Based on the investigations, the following conclusions are made: (1) The BRB's revealed significant slips at the joint with the existing RC beam, up-lifts of columns from RC foundations and displacements due to the flexibility of foundations, and final failure due to the buckling and fracture of base joint angles. The lateral stiffness appeared to be, thereby, as low as one seventh of the intended value, which led to a large yield displacement and, therefore, the BRB's could not dissipate seismic input energy as desired within the range of anticipated displacements. (2) Although the strengthened model did not behave as desired, great enhancement in earthquake resistance was achieved through an approximate 50% increase in the lateral resistance of the wall, due to the axial constraint by the peripheral BRB frames. Finally, (3) whereas in the original model, base torsion was resisted by both the inner core walls and the peripheral frames, the strengthened model resisted most of the base torsion with the peripheral frames, after yielding of the inner core walls, and represented dual values of torsion stiffness, depending on the yielding of core walls.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.187-195
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• 2018

Buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) are widely used as highly ductile seismic devices, with the first building using BRBs completed in 1989 in Tokyo, and thousands more now in Japan, USA, Taiwan, China, New Zealand and other countries. Although design codes of several countries specify BRB performance criteria, detailed design provisions are not necessarily provided, as BRBs are typically treated as a manufactured device. This paper briefly reviews the early history of BRB research and offers state-of-the-art views on the design criteria required to obtain stable and reliable performance. Representative project examples and up-to-date studies relevant to tall buildings are summarized.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.699-716
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• 2016

Buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs) are commonly used as lateral force-resisting systems in the structures located in seismic-active regions. The nearly symmetric load-displacement behavior of buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) helps in dissipating the input seismic energy through metallic hysteresis. In this study, an experimental investigation has been conducted on the reduced-core length BRB (RCLBRB) specimens to evaluate their hysteretic and overall performance under gradually increased cyclic loading. Detachable casings are used for the concrete providing confinement to the steel core segments of all test specimens to facilitate the post-earthquake inspection of steel core elements. The influence of variable core clearance and the local detailing of casings on the cyclic performance of RCLBRB specimens has been studied. The RCLBRB specimen with the detachable casing system and a smaller core clearance at the end zone as compared to the central region exhibited excellent hysteretic behavior without any slip. Such RCLBRB showed balanced higher yielding deformed configuration up to a core strain of 4.2% without any premature instability. The strength-adjustment factors for the RCLBRB specimens are found to be nearly same as that of the conventional BRBs as noticed in the past studies. Simple expressions have been proposed based on the regression analysis to estimate the strength-adjustment factors and equivalent damping potential of the RCLBRB specimens.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2018

In this paper, two kinds of buckling restrained braces (BRBs) are designed to improve the mechanical properties and fatigue life, the reserved gap and viscoelastic filler with high energy dissipation capacity are employed as the sliding element, respectively. The fatigue life of BRBs considering the effect of sliding element is predicted based on Manson-Coffin model. The property tests under different displacement amplitudes are carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties and fatigue life of BRBs. At last, the finite element analysis is performed to study the effects of the gap and viscoelastic filler on mechanical properties BRBs. Experimental and simulation results indicate that BRB employed with viscoelastic filler has a higher fatigue life and more stable mechanical property compared to BRB employed with gap, and the smaller reserved gap can more effectively improve the energy dissipation capacity of BRB.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2022

In most self-center braces, decreasing residual deformation is possible only by increasing pretension force, which results in lower energy dissipation capacity. On the other hand, increasing energy dissipation capacity means higher values of residual deformation. The goal of this research was to find the best design for a self-centering buckling restrained brace (SC-BRB) system by balancing self-centering capability and energy dissipation. Three, six, and nine-story structures were investigated using OpenSees software and the TCL programming language to achieve this goal. For each height, 62 different SC-BRBs were considered using different values for the pretension force of cables, the area of the buckling restrained brace (BRB) core plate, and the yield stress of the core plate. The residual deformation and dissipated energy of all the models were calculated using nonlinear analyses after cyclic loading was applied. The optimum design for each height was determined among all the models and was compared to the structure equipped with the usual BRB. The residual deformation of the framed buildings was significantly reduced, according to the findings. Also the reduction of the energy dissipation was acceptable. The optimum design of SC-BRB in 6-story building has the most reduction percent in residual deformation, it can reduce residual deformation of building 83% while causing only a 57% of reduction in dissipated energy. The greatest reduction in residual deformation versus dissipated energy reduction was for the optimum SC-BRB design of 9-story building, results indicated that it can reduce residual deformation of building 69% while causing only a 42% of reduction in dissipated energy.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.687-699
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• 2020

This paper focus on the buckling restrained braces (BRBs) with new casing members (CMs). Seven BRBs with CMs consisting of precast concrete modules (PCMs) were tested to investigate the effects of CMs on the cyclic performance of BRBs. The PCMs consisted of plain and reinforced concrete casted into wooden or steel molds than they were located on the core plate (CP) via bolts. There were 14 or 18 PCMs on the CP for each BRBs. The technique of the PCMs for the CM provides that the BRBs can be constructed inside the steel or reinforced concrete (RC) structures. In this way, their applications may be rapid and practical during the application of the retrofitting. The test results indicated that the cyclic performance of the BRBs was dominated by the connection strength and confinement of the PCMs. The BRBs with PCMs wrapped with fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs) sustained stable hysteretic performance up to a CP strain of 2.0 %. This indicates that the new designed BRBs with PCMs were found to be acceptable in terms of cyclic performance. Furthermore, the connection details, isolation materials and their application techniques have been also investigated for the improved BRB design in this study.

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

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.285-302
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• 2017

Buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs) are commonly used as the lateral force-resisting systems in building structures in the seismic regions. The nearly-symmetric hysteretic response and the delayed brace core fracture of buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) under the axial cyclic loading provide the adequate lateral force and deformation capacity to BRBFs under the earthquake excitation. However, the smaller axial stiffness of BRBs result in the undesirable higher residual drift response of BRBFs in the post-earthquake scenario. Two alternative approaches are investigated in this study to improve the elastic axial stiffness of BRBs, namely, (i) by shortening the yielding cores of BRBs; and (ii) by reducing the BRB assemblies and adding the elastic brace segments in series. In order to obtain the limiting yielding core lengths of BRBs, a modified approach based on Coffin-Manson relationship and the higher mode compression buckling criteria has been proposed in this study. Both non-linear static and dynamic analyses are carried out to analytically evaluate the seismic response of BRBFs fitted with short-core BRBs of two medium-rise building frames. Analysis results showed that the proposed brace systems are effective in reducing the inter-story and residual drift response of braced frames without any significant change in the story shear and the displacement ductility demands.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.247-254
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• 2012

In order to improve the seismic behaviors of traditional steel-concrete mixed structure, a novel steel concrete mixed structure consisting of steel frames braced with buckling restrained braces (BRBs) and a concrete tube is proposed. Based on several assumptions, the simplified mechanical model of the novel mixed structure is established, and the shear and bending stiffness formulas of the steel frames, BRBs and concrete tube are respectively introduced. The equilibrium differential equation of the novel mixed structure under horizontal load is developed based on the structural elastic theory. The simplified algorithms to determine the lateral displacement and internal forces of the novel mixed structure under the inverted-triangle distributed load, uniformly load and top-concentrated load are then obtained considering several boundary conditions and compatible deformation conditions. The effectiveness of the simplified algorithms is verified by FEM comparison.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.72 no.4
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• pp.443-454
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• 2019

In order to reduce the residual drift of a structure in structural engineering field, a combined structural system (dual) consisting of steel buckling-restrained braced frame (BRBF) along with shear wall is proposed. In this paper, BRBFs are used with special reinforced concrete shear walls as combined systems. Some prototype models of the proposed combined systems as well as steel BRBF-only systems (without walls) are designed according to the code recommendations. Then, the nonlinear model of the systems is prepared using fiber elements for the reinforced concrete wall and appropriate elements for the BRBs. Seismic responses of the combined systems subjected to ground motions at maximum considered earthquake level are investigated and compared to those obtained from BRBFs. Results showed that the maximum residual inter-story drift from the combined systems is, on average, less than half of the corresponding value of the BRBFs. In this research, mean of absolute values of the maximum inter-story drift ratio demand obtained from combined systems is less than the 3% limitation, while this criterion has not been fulfilled by BRBF systems.