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Performance-based design and evaluation of innovative steel knee braced truss moment frames

University of British Columbia

Steel truss girders are very economical and practical to span large distances, when used efficiently this can create large interior opening which cannot be economically accomplished by any other structural systems. However, due to lack of ductility in connections and poor element energy dissipation capacity, conventional steel trusses are not suitable for seismic applications. To retain the advantages of steel trusses, a novel and innovative steel structural system, named buckling restrained knee braced truss moment frame (BRKBTMF) system has been introduced and extensively studied in this thesis. The BRKBTMF system utilizes buckling restrained braces (BRBs) as the designated structural elements to dissipate earthquake energy. This allows BRKBTMF to span long distances, while having efficient and robust energy dissipation capacity to resist earthquake loads. More importantly, by using the BRBs as structural fuses, the structural damages can be controlled. This allows the structure to be repaired more efficiently and effectively after the earthquake, which reduces the repair time and repair costs, making the BRKBTMF more resilient towards future earthquakes. This thesis consisted of three parts. First, the performance-based plastic design procedure (PBPD) was applied to design a prototype office building located in Berkeley, California. Nonlinear dynamic analysis was conducted to examine the performance of the BRKBTMF under ranges of earthquakes. The result showed that the PBPD was a viable and efficient deign procedure for the BRKBTMF, where both the drift and strength limits were satisfied without design iterations. Second, new material model and element removal techniques were implemented to model the behavior of BRBs and BRKBTMF, where detailed failure modes could be explicitly modeled. Third, detailed parameter studies, including influence of the BRB hysteresis, BRB configuration, and truss span, were conducted. The parameter studies showed that these parameters can significantly affect the seismic structural performance of the BRKBTMF system.

Text

2014-10-28

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50914

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/