Designing, testing and modelling two innovative non-conventional buckling restrained braces for seismic resistant buildings

Abstract

In this thesis two all-steel BRB have been designed, manufactured and tested, and both satisfy the testing protocols required by EU and US codes. They are composed of a steel slotted restraining unit which stabilizes the steel core. The first one, the Modular Buckling Restrained Brace (MBRB), is composed by several seriated modules which contain several dissipation units connected in parallel, which yield under shear forces. Although it has good hysteretic response and a high ductility, its core is heavy and expensive to manufacture. The second one,the Slotted Buckling Restraining Brace (SBRB), solves these two shortcomings. It yields under axial forces, like the conventional BRBs, but the usual solid core has been substituted by a perforated plate. The core is a one-piece element composed of two lateral bands, of a nearly uniform section and designed to yield, connected by stabilizing bridges, which behave elastic. The buckling prevention of the lateral bands is done by the restraining unit and the stabilizing bridges. Design expressions have been proposed to design both devices, and a numerical material model have been formulated and implemented in commercial finite element method software to numerically simulate the behavior of the braces, which will reduce the need of full scale tests for its design

En la present tesi, dos BVR totalment metàl·lics s’han dissenyat, fabricat i assajat, satisfent tots dos els requeriments dels protocols definits per les normes europees i americanes. Estan formats per un element de travat ranurat que estabilitza el nucli metàl·lic. El primer d’ells, el Braç de Vinclament Restringit Modular (BVRM), està format per diversos mòduls seriats que a la vegada contenen diverses unitats de dissipació, que plastifiquen sota esforços tallants, connectades en paral·lel. Tot i que té un bon comportament histerètic i una gran ductilitat, el nucli és pesat i difícil de fabricar. El segon braç, anomenat Braç de Vinclament Restringit Ranurat (BVRR), soluciona aquests inconvenients. Plastifica sota esforços axials, de la mateixa manera que els BVR convencionals, però el nucli massís és substituït per una platina perforada. Aquest nucli consisteix en un únic element composat per dos bandes laterals, dissenyades per a plastificar i amb una secció quasi constant, connectades per diversos ponts estabilitzadors que es mantenen sempre en el seu rang elàstic. Aquests ponts, juntament amb l’element de travat, impedeixen el vinclament de les bandes laterals. S’han proposat diverses expressions de disseny pels dos braços. S’ha formulat i implementat, en un programa d’elements finits comercial, un model de material per a simular numèricament el comportament dels braços, reduint així la dependència dels assajos a escala real durant el seu procés de disseny