Evaluation of seismic criteria of built-up special concentrically braced frames

In this paper, seismic provisions related to built-up special concentrically braced frames (BSCBFs) are investigated under cyclic loading using non-linear finite element analysis of a single-bay single-story frame. These braces, which contain double angle and double channel brace sections, are considered in two types of single diagonal and X-braced frames. The results of this study show that current seismic provisions such as observing the 0.4 ratio for slenderness ratio of individual elements between stitch connectors are conservative in BSCBFs, and can be increased according to the type of braces. Furthermore, such increments will lead to decreasing or remaining the current middle protected zone requirements of each BSCBFs. Failure results of BSCBFs, which are related to the plastic equivalent strain growth of members and ductility capacity of the models, show that the behaviors of double channel back-to-back diagonal braces are more desirable than those of similar face-to-face ones. Also, for double angle diagonal braces, results show that the failure of back-to-back BSCBFs occurs faster in comparison with face-toface similar braces. In X-braced frames, cyclic and failure behaviors of built-up face-to-face models are more desirable than similar back-to-back braces in general.