An Investigation of the Hysteretic Behavior of a Buckling-Restrained Brace Subsystem Frame with Out-of-Plane Eccentricity

Abstract

This paper examines the differences in hysteretic behavior of buckling-restrained brace subsystem frames (BRBFs) with concentric and out-of-plane eccentric configurations. First, a quasi-static experiment was carried out on steel plate BRBF specimens to study the differences in mechanical properties, stability, and energy dissipation capacity between BRBFs with concentric and out-of-plane eccentric configurations. Second, a numerical simulation was carried out using the same steel plate BRBF specimens to study the difference in the stress distribution and high-order deformation patterns between the BRBFs with concentric and out-of-plane eccentric configurations. The test and numerical results showed that the out-of-plane eccentric BRBFs under in-plane quasi-static loads have different mechanical properties, larger compression strength adjustment factors ([Formula: see text]) under larger loading amplitudes, higher [Formula: see text] value increasing rates, lower equivalent viscous damping ratios ([Formula: see text]), different yield processes, and different generation processes of high-order core deformation compared with the concentric BRBFs.