RESEARCH ARTICLE


Concentrically Braced Frames: European vs. North American Seismic Design Provisions



Silvia Costanzo*, Landolfo Raffaele
Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture, University of Naples “Federico II”, via Forno Vecchio 36, 80134 Naples, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2017 Costanzo and Raffaele

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture, University of Naples “Federico II”, via Forno Vecchio 36, 80134 Naples, Italy; Tel: +86 17791679289; E-mail: silvia.costanzo@unina.it


Abstract

A critical review of seismic design provisions for concentrically braced frames (CBFs) in both European and North American (i.e. US and Canadian) codes is presented in this paper. Indeed, even though those codes are based on capacity design philosophy, different requirements and different approaches are used to guarantee the hierarchy of resistances between dissipative and non-dissipative elements, thus leading different overall seismic performance. In detail, the main issues critically discussed are (i) the ductility classes and the correlated force-reduction factors; (ii) the structural analysis methods permitted by different codes; (iii) the modelling aspects of braces; (iv) the detailing rules for both dissipative (bracing members) and non-dissipative elements. Synoptic tables summarizing the corresponding assumptions and requirements in different codes are provided.

Keywords: Capacity design, Seismic performance, Chevron bracings, Concentrically braced frames, Dissipative structures, Seismic codes, X-CBF.