Cost-competitive Steel Devices for Seismic Retrofitting of RC Frames: Model Identification and Nonlinear Analysis

Abstract

Seismic retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings, designed in the last decades in seismic areas, is one of the most complex tasks for structural engineers: in fact, it includes several issues, such as quantifying the capacity of existing members, designing the supplemental ones and analysing the whole structure. This paper is intended as a contribution to clarifying some of those issues. First of all, a model based on using 1D finite elements with fiber section discretization is proposed for simulating the behaviour of a cost-competitive steel device that can be employed as a link in Y-shaped eccentric bracings (EB): particularly, the cyclic response and the low-cycle fatigue degradation is modelled, based on the results of obtained in a previous experimental research carried out at the University of Salerno. Secondly, the global response of an existing RC frame equipped with the aforementioned devices is investigated via Non Linear Time History (NLTH) analyses. Taking into account the lowcycle fatigue often leads to significantly more severe seismic displacement demand value on the retrofitted structure: a close correlation is unveiled between some specific features of the seismic signals adopted in the NLTH and the actual influence of low-cycle fatigue.