• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.573-582
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• 2018

This study develops and numerically verifies an innovative seismically resilient bracing system. The proposed self-centering tension-only brace (SC-TOB) is composed of a tensioning system to provide a self-centering response, a frictional device for energy dissipation, and a high-strength steel cable as a bracing element. It is considered to be an improvement over the traditional self-centering braces in terms of lightness, high bearing capacity, load relief, and double-elongation capacity. In this paper, the mechanics of the system are first described. Governing equations deduced from the developed analytical model to predict the behavior of the system are then provided. The results from a finite element validation confirm that the SC-TOB performs as analytically predicted. Key parameters including the activation displacement and load, the self-centering parameter, and equivalent viscous damping are investigated, and their influences on the system behavior are discussed. Finally, a design procedure considering controlled softening behavior is developed and illustrated through a design example.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.173-183
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• 2024

This study investigates a new seismic retrofit system that utilizes rotational friction dampers and axial springs. The retrofit system involves a steel frame with rotational friction dampers (RFD) at beam-column joints and linear springs at the corners, providing energy dissipation and self-centering capabilities to existing structures. The axial spring acts as a self-centering mechanism that eliminates residual deformations, while the friction damper mitigates seismic damage. To evaluate the seismic performance of the proposed retrofit system, a series of cyclic loading tests were carried out on a steel beam-column subassembly equipped with the proposed devices. An analytical model was then developed to validate the experimental results. A performance point ratio (PPR) was presented to optimize the design parameters of the retrofit system, and a performance-based seismic design strategy was developed based on the PPR. The retrofit system's effectiveness and the presented performance-based design approach were evaluated through case study models, and the analysis results demonstrated that the developed retrofit system and the performance-based design procedure were effective in retrofitting structures for multi-level design objectives.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.70-78
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• 2023

The ordinary concentrically braced frame has an advantage of having simple design procedure. For this reason, it has been widely used for the small-sized frame structures subject to moderate or lower magnitude earthquake, even though its seismic performance against the earthquake load is not much effective compared to that of other frame systems. To enhance seismic performance of the ordinary concentrically braced frame where the bracing has a weakness for compressive behavior under lateral earthquake, seismic retrofitting by viscous damper has been commonly introduced. However, the viscous damper, itself, generally does not have stiffness for restoring the structure to the original position. This may cause residual displacement to the structure. In this paper, a self-centering viscous damper system in which upper and lower beams having flexural rigidity play a role as a nonlinear-elastic spring, restoring the spring-damper system subject to external displacement history to its original location, is developed. The numerical analysis for a simplified frame structure shows how including the developed self-centering viscous damper system leads to an enhanced seismic performance of the frame structure through energy dissipation during earthquake excitation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.251-261
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• 2018

Self-centering concentrically braced frames (SCCBFs) are emerging as high performance seismically resistant braced framing system, due to the capacity of withstanding strong earthquake attacks and promptly recovering after events. To get a further insight into the seismic performance of SCCBFs, systematical evaluations are currently conducted from the perspective of modal contributions. In this paper, the modal pushover analysis (MPA) approach is utilized to obtain the realistic seismic demands by summarizing the contribution of each single vibration mode. The MPA-based results are compared with the exact results from nonlinear response history analysis. The adopted SCCBFs originate from existing buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBF), which are also analyzed for purpose of comparison. In the analysis of these comparable framing systems, interested performance indices that closely relate to the structural damage degree include the interstory drift ratio, floor acceleration, and absorbed hysteretic energy. The study shows that the MPA approach produces acceptable predictions in comparison to the exact results for SCCBFs. In addition, the high-modes effect on the seismic behavior increases with the building height, and is more evident in the SCCBFs than the BRBFs.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.663-677
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• 2023

The self-centering energy-dissipating coupled wall panels (SECWs) possess a dual capacity of resiliency and energy dissipation. Used in steel frames, the SECWs can localize the damage of structures and reduce residual drifts. Based on OpenSEES, the nonlinear models were established and validated by experimental results. The seismic design procedure of steel frame with SECW structures (SF-SECW) was proposed in accordance with four-level seismic fortification objectives. Nonlinear time-history response analyses were carried out to validate the reasonability of seismic design procedure for 6-story and 12-story structures. Results show that the inter-story drifts of designed structures are less than drift limits. According to incremental dynamic analyses (IDA), the fragility curves of mentioned-above structure models under different limit states were obtained. The results indicate that designed structures have good seismic performance and meet the seismic fortification objectives.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.221-227
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• 2019

In this paper passive seismic retrofit devices for building structures developed by the author in recent years are introduced. The proposed damping devices were developed by slightly modifying the configuration of conventional devices and enhancing their effectiveness. First a seismic retrofit system consisting of a pin-jointed steel frame and rotational friction dampers installed at each corner of the steel frame was developed. Then two types of steel slit dampers were developed; box-type slit damper and multi-slit damper. In addition, hybrid dampers were developed by combining a slit damper and a friction damper connected in parallel. Finally a self-centering system was developed by using preloaded tendons and viscous dampers connected in series. For each retrofit system developed, an appropriate analytical model was developed, and the seismic performance was verified by loading test and earthquake analysis of case study structures. The experimental and analysis results show that the proposed systems can be used efficiently to enhance the seismic performance of building structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.35-44
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• 2008

A self-centering energy-dissipative(SCED) bracing system has recently been developed as a new seismic force resistant bracing system. The advantage of the SCED brace system is that, unlike other comparable advanced bracing systems that dissipate energy such as the buckling restrained brace(BRB) system, it has a self-centering capability that reduces or eliminates residual building deformations after major seismic events. In order to investigate the effects of torsion on the SCED brace and BRB systems, nonlinear time history analyses were used to compare the responses of 3D model structures with three different amounts of frame eccentricity. The results of the analysis showed that the interstory drifts of SCED braced frames are more uniform than those of BRB frames, without regard to irregularity. The residual drift and residual rotation responses tended to decrease as irregularity increased. For medium-rise structures, the drift concentration factors(DCFs) for SCED systems were lower than those for BRB frames. This means that SCED-braced frames deform in a more uniform manner with respect to building height. The effect of the torsional irregularity on the magnitude of the DCFs was small.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.287-299
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of damped cable systems (DCS) to mitigate the earthquake-induced responses of a building frame structure. The seismic performance of the DCS is investigated using the fragility analysis and life cycle cost evaluation of an existing building retrofitted with the DCS, and the results are compared with the structure retrofitted with conventional fluid viscous dampers. The comparison of the analysis results reveals that, due to the self-centering capability of the DCS, residual displacement approximately reaches to zero for the structure retrofitted with the DCS. The fragility analysis shows that the structure retrofitted with the DCS has the least probability of reaching the specific limit states compared to the bare structure and the structure with the conventional fluid viscous damper (VD), especially under the severe ground motions. It is also observed that both the initial and the life cycle costs of the DCS seismic retrofitting technique is lesser compare to the structure retrofitted with the VD.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.21-33
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• 2014

The tied braced frame (TBF) system was developed to achieve uniform seismic inelastic demand along the height of multi-storey eccentrically braced steel frames. A modular tied braced frame (M-TBF) configuration has been recently proposed to reach the same objective while reducing the large axial force demand imposed on the vertical tie members connecting the link beams together in TBFs. M-TBFs may however experience variations in storey drifts at levels where the ties have been removed to form the modules. In this paper, the possibility of reducing the discontinuity in displacement response of a 16-storey M-TBF structure by introducing energy dissipating (ED) devices between the modules is examined. Two M-TBF configurations are investigated: an M-TBF with two 8-storey modules and an M-TBF with four 4-storey modules. Three types of ED devices are studied: friction dampers (FD), buckling restrained bracing (BRB) members and self-centering energy dissipative (SCED) members. The ED devices were sized such that no additional force demand was imposed on the discontinuous tie members. Nonlinear response history analysis showed that all three ED systems can be used to reduce discontinuities in storey drifts of M-TBFs. The BRB members experienced the smallest peak deformations whereas minimum residual deformations were obtained with the SCED devices.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.167-184
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• 2023

In this study, a new recentering friction device (RFD) to retrofit steel moment frame structures is introduced. The device provides both self-centering and energy dissipation capabilities for the retrofitted structure. A hybrid performance-based seismic design procedure considering multiple limit states is proposed for designing the device and the retrofitted structure. The design of the RFD is achieved by modifying the conventional performance-based seismic design (PBSD) procedure using computational intelligence techniques, namely, genetic algorithm (GA) and artificial neural network (ANN). Numerous nonlinear time-history response analyses (NLTHAs) are conducted on multi-degree of freedom (MDOF) and single-degree of freedom (SDOF) systems to train and validate the ANN to achieve high prediction accuracy. The proposed procedure and the new RFD are assessed using 2D and 3D models globally and locally. Globally, the effectiveness of the proposed device is assessed by conducting NLTHAs to check the maximum inter-story drift ratio (MIDR). Seismic fragilities of the retrofitted models are investigated by constructing fragility curves of the models for different limit states. After that, seismic life cycle cost (LCC) is estimated for the models with and without the retrofit. Locally, the stress concentration at the contact point of the RFD and the existing steel frame is checked being within acceptable limits using finite element modeling (FEM). The RFD showed its effectiveness in minimizing MIDR and eliminating residual drift for low to mid-rise steel frames models tested. GA and ANN proved to be crucial integrated parts in the modified PBSD to achieve the required seismic performance at different limit states with reasonable computational cost. ANN showed a very high prediction accuracy for transformation between MDOF and SDOF systems. Also, the proposed retrofit showed its efficiency in enhancing the seismic fragility and reducing the LCC significantly compared to the un-retrofitted models.