ESTIMATION OF CUMULATIVE DEFORMATION CAPACITY FOR BUCKLING RESTRAINED BRACES PLACED IN FRAMES

Cumulative deformation capacity is one of the most important benchmark for the performances of elasto-plastic dampers within vibration-controlled buildings built in seismic area, because this value is considered to be related deeply to the cumulative energy dissipation capacity and validity life of the dampers. However, estimating this value is not easy because they are affected by loading histories. Following the previous study proposing simple prediction equations, relationship between required parameters and structures' characteristics are discussed in this paper, and easy estimation methods for cumulative deformation capacities and energy dissipation capacites of buckling-restrained braces which will not require time-history analyses are proposed, and their accuracies are discussed.