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Abstract
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Conventional buckling restrained braces used in concentrically braced frames are expected to yield in both tension and compression without major degradation of capacity under severe seismic ground motions. One of the weakness points of a standard buckling restrained braced frame is the low post-yield stiffness and thus large residual deformation under moderate to severe ground motions. This phenomenon can be attributed to low post-yield stiffness of core member in a BRB. This paper introduces a multi-core buckling restrained brace. The multi-core term arises from the use of more than one core component with different steel materials, including high-performance steel (HPS-70W) and stainless steel (304L) with high strain hardening properties. Nonlinear dynamic time history analyses were conducted on variety of diagonally braced frames with different heights, in order to compare the seismic performance of regular and multi-core buckling restrained braced frames. The results exhibited that the proposed multi-core buckling restrained braces reduce inter-story and especially residual drift demands in BRBFs. In addition, the results of seismic fragility analysis designated that the probability of exceedance of residual drifts in multi-core buckling restrained braced frames is significantly lower in comparison to standard BRBFs.
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