Buckling restrained brace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Buckling restrained brace

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buckling restrained braces (BRBs) are composed of a slender steel core continuously supported by a concrete
casing in order to prevent buckling under axial compression. The core and the casing are decoupled to prevent
interaction between them.
The concept of BRBs was developed in Japan at the end of the 1980s. It appeared in the United States after the
Northridge earthquake in 1994 and it is now accepted with its design regulated in current standards as a
displacement dependent lateral load resisting solution. As earthquake awareness among engineers is enhanced
by evolving European standards, the need for economical solutions providing adequate resistance for new
structures is now increasing in Europe and precipitating the use of BRBs there.

Contents
1 Components
2 Characteristics of buckling restrained braces
3 Connections
4 Advantages
5 Reference structures
6 References
7 External links

Components
Three major components can be distinguished in the cross-section:
steel core
bond-preventing layer
casing
The bond-preventing layer decouples the casing from the core. Accordingly, the axial load of the brace is
transmitted by the steel core only, while the casing - through its flexural rigidity provides the proper lateral
support against flexural buckling of the core.
The steel core is to resist the full axial force developed in the bracing. Its cross-sectional area can be
significantly lower than that of regular braces since its performance is not limited by buckling. Along its length
the core can be divided into three parts: the middle, so-called yielding length and the rigid, non-yielding parts on
both ends. Increased and typically stiffened cross-section of the non-yielding part ensures that it remains
elastic, and thus plasticity is concentrated in the middle part of the steel core. Such configuration provides high
confidence in prediction of the element behaviour and failure.
The casing is typically made of concrete filled steel tubes. The design criterion for the casing is to provide
adequate lateral restraint (i.e. rigidity) against the steel core buckling.

Characteristics of buckling restrained braces

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As indicated by the achieved ductility and stable, repeatable hysteresis loops, BRB can absorb significant
amount of energy during cyclic loadings, such as an earthquake event.
It can be observed that preventing buckling leads to similar strength and ductile behaviour in compression and
tension, illustrating the envelope of the hysteresis curves, also referred as backbone curve. This curve is
considered as an important basis of practical design.
In accordance with the above observations, the beneficial cyclic behaviour of the steel material is extrapolated
to element level and thus to the overall structural level: an extremely dissipative structure can be designed using
BRBs.
Experimental results prove the ductile, stable and repeatable hysteretic behaviour of structures built with BRBs.
Depending on the configuration of braces, the building codes (e.g. AISC) in the United States allow the use of a
behaviour factor (response modification factor) up to 8, that is comparable to special moment resisting frames.
Thus, the seismic load applied to the structure is efficiently reduced, which results in smaller cross sections for
the beams and columns of the braced frames, smaller demands on the connections and, most importantly, the
loads on the foundation are drastically decreased.

Connections
Usually three kinds of connections are used for BRBs:
welded connection
pinned connection
bolted connection

Advantages
Comparative studies (e.g. Dasse report and Star Seismic Europe report) as well as completed construction
projects confirm the advantages of Buckling Restrained Braced Frame (BRBF) system. BRBF can be superior
to other common dissipative structures with global respect to cost efficiency due to the following reasons:
superior ductile and energy dissipative behaviour,
low seismic loads (due to high behaviour factor and usually increased fundamental period),
easy-to-control structural behaviour,
smaller member sizes (columns, beams),
smaller and simpler connections,
larger efficient plan area of the building, which also increases the real estate value,
lower demand on foundations specially, the arising tension loads are drastically decreased,
easy and fast erection providing significant time savings,
easy to adopt in seismic retrofitting,
easy post-earthquake investigation and replacement if needed.

Reference structures
Intermountain Medical Center
Levi's Stadium home of the San Francisco 49ers
L.A. Live hotel and residences
One Rincon Hill tower

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Washington Mutual tower, office building

Rio Tinto Stadium

References
S. Hussain, P. V. Benschoten, M. A. Satari, S. Lin: Buckling Restrained Braced Frame Structures:
Analysis, Design and Approvals Issues
Merritt, S., Uang, Ch.M., Benzoni, G., Subassemblage testing of Star Seismic buckling-restrained braces,
Test report, University of California, San Diego, 2003.
AISC 341-05: Seismic Provisions for Structural Steel Buildings
L. Calado, J. M. Proenca, A. Panao, E. Nsieri, A. Rutenberg, R. Levy: Prohitech WP5, Innovative
materials and techniques, Buckling Restrained Braces
Dasse Design Inc.: Cost Advantages of Buckling Restrained Braced Frame Buildings. San Francisco,
2009.
EN1998-1:2005, Eurocode 8: Design of structures for earthquake resistance Part 1: General rules,
seismic actions and rules for buildings, CEN.
European standard EN 15129:2009: Anti-seismic devices
L. Dunai: Type testing of Buckling Restrained Braces according to EN 15129 EWC800 Final report,
2011.
Bonessio, N., Lomiento, G., Benzoni, G., (2011). "An experimental model of buckling restrained braces
for multi-performance optimum design". Seismic Isolation and Protection Systems, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.
7590. doi:10.2140/siaps.2011.2.75 (https://dx.doi.org/10.2140%2Fsiaps.2011.2.75)

External links
Star Seismic Europe (http://www.starseismic.eu/)
Star Seismic (http://www.starseismic.net/)
CoreBrace (http://www.CoreBrace.com/)
CoreBrace Mxico (http://www.corebracemexico.com/)
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Categories: Earthquake engineering
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