Experimental Hysteretic Behavior and Application of an Assembled Self-Centering Buckling-Restrained Brace

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an assembled self-centering buckling-restrained brace (ASCBRB), which eliminates the residual drift of structures after a major horizontal displacement. The ASCBRB also represents an advanced device for partial replacement of damaged parts of a brace. Four groups of prestressed disk springs and a metal yielding core plate were used to improve the resilience and energy dissipation of the brace, respectively. The hysteretic mechanics of the self-centering system was summarized and experimentally determined through a cyclic quasi-static experiment on four specimens with different energy-dissipation ratios. The ASCBRBs were experimentally verified to exhibit superior self-centering capacity and flag-shaped hysteretic behavior. Moreover, the damage concentrated on the core and guide plates demonstrated the feasibility of partial replacement. Nonlinear dynamic analyses of the seismic performance of the ASCBRB frame provided evidence that the proposed device significantly reduces residual drift compared with buckling-restrained braced frames having the same design parameters.