Application of Buckling-Restrained Braces in Prefabricated Reinforced Concrete Frame

摘要

The old prefabricated reinforced concrete buildings have been designed with old standards that are lower than the present design code provisions. These buildings are likely to be vulnerable to severe damage or total collapse under strong seismic excitations. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate these building's seismic performance and to retrofit them using appropriate methods. Buckling restrained brace (BRB) is a kind of prospective energy dissipation component. As a brace, it is also a lateral force resistant member. Based on the characteristics of prefabricated frame and BRB, the time history analysis of a prefabricated frame strengthening by BRB is carried out by using software ANSYS to input the seismic wave. Then, the seismic behavior of this kind of frame is studied. It is observed that the seismic response of the retrofitted structures reduces significantly in comparison with the corresponding original structure without any retrofit measures.