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Abstract
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One of the key requirements for the desirable mechanical behavior of buckling restrained braces (BRBs) under severe lateral loading is to prevent overall buckling until the brace member reaches sufficient plastic deformation and ductility. This paper presents finite element analysis results of proposed all-steel buckling restrained braces. The proposed BRBs have identical core sections but different Buckling Restraining Mechanisms (BRMs). The objective of the analyses is to conduct a parametric study of BRBs with different amounts of gap and core and BRM contact friction coefficients to investigate the global buckling behavior of the brace. The results of the analyses showed that BRM flexural stiffness could significantly affect the global buckling behavior of a BRB. However, the global buckling response was resulted to be strongly dependent upon the magnitude of friction coefficient between the core and the encasing contact surfaces. In addition, the results showed that global buckling response of BRBs with direct contact of core and BRM is more sensitive to the magnitude of contact friction coefficient.
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