Hybrid self-centering dual rocking core system for seismic resilience by controlling both structural and nonstructural damage

Abstract

This study proposes a novel hybrid self-centering dual rocking core (HSDRC) system with structural and nonstructural damage control functions for the building structure’s seismic resilience. The rigid rocking cores (RCs), viscous dampers (VDs), and shear friction spring dampers (SFDs) are introduced in HSDRC systems. The rocking cores with pinned bases are adopted for promoting uniform inter-story drifts over the building height. The SFDs are introduced to dissipate hysteretic energy and bring self-centering capacity by eliminating residual deformation. The VD’s velocity-proportional damping can help HSDRC systems control the nonstructural damage and building content’s damage sensitive to absolute floor accelerations. The expected behavior of HSDRC systems is first described. A direct displacement-based design (DDBD) method is following proposed to achieve the desired nonlinear behavior of HSDRC. Following the developed DDBD procedure, six HSDRC systems are designed. For highlighting the advantages of HSDRC systems compared to the existing self-centering energy-absorbing rocking core (SEDRC) system, two SEDRC systems are also designed. Nonlinear dynamics were included for investigating the performance of the designed systems subjected to seismic events. The numerical results demonstrate that the designed HSDRC systems show the expected nonlinear behavior and achieve the design target, confirming the developed DDBD method’s effectiveness. Compared to SEDRC systems, the newly proposed HSDRC systems show smaller absolute floor acceleration responses while obtaining the comparative capacity in controlling both peak and residual inters-tory drifts, indicating the proposed HSDRC systems can be a promising seismic resilient structural system for both structural and nonstructural damage control.