• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.3
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• pp.239-252
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• 2024

Steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) are classified as lateral load-resisting systems. The feasibility of openings in the steel plate is a characteristic of SPSWs. The use of openings in SPSWs can lower the load capacity, stiffness, and energy dissipation. This study proposes a novel form of SPSWs that provides convenient access through openings by combining steel plates and eccentrically braced frames (EBFs). The proposed system also avoids a substantial reduction in the strength and stiffness. Hence, various geometric forms were analyzed through two different structural approaches. Groups 1, 2, and 3 included a steel EBF with a steel plate between the column and EBF in order to improve system performance. In Group 4, the proposed system was evaluated within an SPSW with openings and an EBF on the opening edge. To evaluate the performance of the proposed systems, the nonlinear finite element method (NL-FEM) was employed under cyclic loading. The hysteresis (load-drift) curve, stress contour, stiffness, and damping were evaluated as the structural outputs. The numerical models indicated that local buckling within the middle plate-EBF connection prevented a diagonal tension field. Moreover, in group 4, the EBF and stiffeners on the opening edge enhanced the structural response by approximately 7.5% in comparison with the base SPSW system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.549-558
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• 2014

Buckling restrained braces(BRBs) developed as a seismic protection element, hysteretic damper, have been investigated in America and Japan mainly. BRBs are composed of a steel core and concrete-filled steel casing. It is one of the major causes of drop in productivity to fill the steel casing with concrete. To improve this problem, the BRB is introduced in which the steel core is restrained with a pair of semicircular springs. In this paper, the numerical and analytical investigation about the desirable configuration for a semicircular spring is presented. Firstly, the stiffness and strength of semicircular spring is determined theoretically to buckle into a very high-order modes. Then, the required stiffness and strength are calculated under the practical design conditions and considered as reference values to find a proper configuration. The material strength and thickness of semicircular spring are chose from the finite element analysis for 5 semicircular springs with varying height. Finally, the nonlinear buckling analysis of BRB with proper semicircular springs shows that the bucking strength of the whole BRB is very similar to the strength of steel core with length between semicircular springs.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.587-608
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• 2009

Modern earthquake-resistant design aims to isolate architectural precast concrete panels from the structural system so as to reduce the interaction with the supporting structure and hence minimize damage. The present study seeks to maximize the cladding-structure interaction by developing an energy-dissipating cladding system (EDCS) that is capable of functioning both as a structural brace, as well as a source of energy dissipation. The EDCS is designed to provide added stiffness and damping to buildings with steel moment resisting frames with the goal of favorably modifying the building response to earthquake-induced forces without demanding any inelastic action and ductility from the basic lateral force resisting system. Because many modern building facades typically have continuous and large openings on top of the precast cladding panels at each floor level for window system, the present study focuses on spandrel type precast concrete cladding panel. The preliminary design of the EDCS was based on existing guidelines and research data on architectural precast concrete cladding and supplemental energy dissipation devices. For the component-level study, the preliminary design was validated and further refined based on the results of nonlinear finite element analyses. The stiffness and strength characteristics of the EDCS were established from a series of nonlinear finite element analyses and are discussed in detail in this paper.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.585-596
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• 2017

Tubular joints have been widely used in offshore platforms and space structures due to their merits such as easy fabrication, aesthetic appearance and better static strength. For existing tubular joints, a grouted sleeve reinforced method was proposed in this paper. Experimental tests on five tubular T-joints reinforced with the grouted sleeve and two conventional tubular T-joints were conducted to investigate their mechanical behaviour. A constant axial compressive force was applied to the chord end to simulate the compressive state of the chord member during the tests. Then an axial compressive force was applied to the top end of the brace member until the collapse of the joint specimens occurred. The parameters investigated herein were the grout thickness, the sleeve length coefficient and the sleeve construction method. The failure mode, ultimate load, initial stiffness and deformability of these joint specimens were discussed. It was found that: (1) The grouted sleeve could change the failure mode of tubular T-joints. (2) The grouted sleeve was observed to provide strength enhancement up to 154.3%~172.7% for the corresponding un-reinforced joint. (3) The initial stiffness and deformability were also greatly improved by the grouted sleeve. (4) The sleeve length coefficient was a key parameter for the improved effect of the grouted sleeve reinforced method.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.487-498
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• 2018

Buckling-restrained braces are passive control devices with high level of energy dissipation ability. However, they suffer from low post-yield stiffness which makes them vulnerable to severe ground motions, especially near-field earthquakes. Among the several methods proposed to improve resistance of BRB frames, mega-brace configuration can be a solution to increase frame lateral strength and stiffness and improve distribution of forces to prevent large displacement in braces. Due to the limited number of research regarding the performance of such systems, the current paper aims to assess seismic performance of BRB frames with mega-bracing arrangement under near-field earthquakes via a detailed probabilistic framework. For this purpose, a group of multi-story mega-BRB frames were modelled by OpenSEES software platform. In the first part of the paper, simplified procedures including nonlinear pushover and Incremental Dynamic Analysis were conducted for performance evaluation. Two groups of near-fault seismic ground motions (Non-pulse and Pulse-like records) were considered for analyses to take into account the effects of record-to-record uncertainties, as well as forward directivity on the results. In the second part, seismic reliability analyses are conducted in the context of performance based earthquake engineering. Two widely-known EDP-based and IM-based probabilistic frameworks are employed to estimate collapse potential of the structures. Results show that all the structures can successfully tolerate near-field earthquakes with a high level of confidence level. Therefore, mega-bracing configuration can be an effective alternative to conventional BRB bracing to withstand near-field earthquakes.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.197-207
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• 2002

Energy dissipation capacity and earthquake responses of steel structures installed with unbonded braces(UB) were investigated. Parametric studies were performed for a single-degree-of-freedom structure under harmonic loads, and optimum yield strength of unbonded braces were derived. 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 for some natural frequencies and seismic loads the maximum displacement and accumulated damage increases as the stiffness of UB increases.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.261-269
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• 2010

It is now possible to design buildings in various forms using a diagrid structural system, which is the one of the most useful structural systems. It is difficult to design and construct the connections, however, and the bucklings in braces weaken the seismic performance of structures. In this study, the initial stiffness, ductility, and energy-dissipated capacity of a diagrid and a diagrid BRB were evaluated via frame tests. The results of the cycling load tests showed that the diagrid BRB had better initial stiffness and ductility, and dissipated extra energy after the BRBs were yielded.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1349-1362
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• 2015

This paper presents an analytical study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of using buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) in mitigating the seismic response of a case study 6 storey reinforced concrete (RC) building. In the design of the BRBs with non-prismatic cross-sections, twelve combinations of ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ design parameters that influence the strength and stiffness of the BRBs, respectively, were considered. The response of the structure with and without BRBs under earthquake ground accelerations were evaluated through nonlinear dynamic analysis. Two sets of ground motions representative of the design earthquake with 10% and 50% exceedance probability in fifty years were taken into account. By comparing the structural performance of the original and buckling restrained braced structures, it was observed that the use of the BRBs were very effective in mitigating the seismic response as a retrofit scheme. However, the selection of the strength and stiffness parameters of the BRBs had considerable effect on the response characteristics of RC structures. For instance, by increasing the value of ${\alpha}$ and by decreasing the value of ${\beta}$ of the buckling-restrained braces, the maximum deformation demand of the structures increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.8 no.3 s.28
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• pp.35-45
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• 1996

The purpose of this paper is to investigate experimentally the strength and deformation of T-joints to improve the structural behavior of truss connection consisted in square hollow steel section. There are two-types to be changed in T-joint shape. One type is TP-series that a brace member is rotated to 45 degree, another type is TR-series that a chord member is rotated to 45 degree. The most important results obtained from the 2nd experiment on the T-joints is as follow; The yielding strength and initial stiffness of TP-series increase more than a current type(TS-series) in $0.6{\leq}{\beta}(d/D){\leq}0.7(0.85{\leq}{\beta}$'$(={\sqrt2}{\cdot}{\beta}){\leq}1.0)$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.169-177
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• 2011

This paper presents the results of the systematic finite element analysis of the in-plane bending moment of T-joints subjected to cyclic loadings. T-joints were fabricated using high-strength, circular, hollow sections. Three-dimensional, nonlinear finite element models of the welded T-joints were constructed to investigate the strength, rotational-stiffness characteristics, and failure modes. A wide scope of structural behaviors explain the influence of the joint geometric parameters, such as the chord and brace wall slenderness ratios and the ratio of the brace to the chord diameter, as well as the yield strength ratios and compressive-chord-stress effects on the ultimate in-plane bending moment capacity of the T-joint.