Application of an extended Bouc-Wen model for hysteretic behavior of the RC structure with SCEBs

The reinforced concrete (RC) structures usually suffer large residual displacements under strong motions. The large residual displacements may substantially reduce the anti-seismic capacity of structures during the aftershock and increase the difficulty and cost of structural repair after an earthquake. To reduce the adverse residual displacement, several self-centering energy dissipation braces (SCEBs) have been proposed to be installed to the RC structures. To investigate the seismic responses of the RC structures with SCEBs under the earthquake excitation, an extended Bouc-Wen model with degradation and self-centering effects is developed in this study. The extended model realized by MATLAB/Simulink program is able to capture the hysteretic characteristics of the RC structures with SCEBs, such as the energy dissipation and the degradation, especially the self-centering effect. The predicted hysteretic behavior of the RC structures with SCEBs based on the extended model, which used the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) for parameter identification, is compared with the experimental results. Comparison results show that the predicted hysteretic curves can be in good agreement with the experimental results. The nonlinear dynamic analyses using the extended model are then carried out to explore the seismic performance of the RC structures with SCEBs. The analysis results demonstrate that the SCEB can effectively reduce the residual displacements of the RC structures, but slightly increase the acceleration.