Seismic performance of self-centering steel column base with buckling-restrained bars

Abstract

Self-centering structures, emerging as a vital innovation in earthquake-resilient design, offer notable advantages in structural integrity, rapid functional recovery post-earthquake, and economic efficiency over the building's life cycle. This paper introduces a self-centering steel column base, employing buckling-restrained bars for energy dissipation. Through an analysis of its force mechanism, it conducts low-cycle reciprocating load test on four set of specimens with varying buckling-restrained bars and axial compression ratios. The results demonstrate the column base's superior seismic performance, characterized by its ability to rapidly restore seismic functionality after unloading and replacing the buckling-restrained bars. The force-displacement hysteresis curves exhibit a distinctive double-flag shape, with a minimal residual story drift of 0.001 rad, underscoring the structure's exceptional self-centering capability. The displacement ductility coefficients and equivalent viscous damping coefficients confirm the column base's excellent deformation and energy dissipation capabilities. Furthermore, a refined ABAQUS finite element model is developed and validated against the load test results, further analyzing the seismic performance relative to key structural parameters.