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OPTIMUM GEOMETRY SELECTION

FOR ECCENTRICALLY BRACED
STEEL FRAMES WITH SHEAR LINKS
by

Devrim ZHENDEKC
Nuri ZHENDEKC
Zekeriya POLAT

ECCENTRICALLY BRACED FRAMES

(EBFs)
EBFs

are
composed
of
columns, beams, and braces in
which one end of each brace
connects to a beam at a short
distance from an adjacent beamto-brace connection.

This short beam segment, called

the link, is intended to serve as a

structural fuse; yielding under
severe earthquakes while the
other components of the frame
essentially remain elastic.

LINK

LINK

EBF Research INITIAL STUDIES

Many experimental and analytical studies

about EBFs have been carried out since the

verification of the EBF concept on test frames
(Roeder and Popov, 1978).

Through out the 1980s, the fundamental

principles of the EBF design procedure were

constructed based on the inelastic performance
assessment of the links.

EBF ResearchRECENT STUDIES

After the introduction of new steel

type (A992) specification in 1997 by
ASTM, the research concerning this
new material have also begun
(Richards and Uang, 2005; Okazaki,
Arce, Ryu and Engelhardt, 2005).

DEFICIENCY IN THE EBF RESEARCH

There is not any conducted parametric study on

a large scale that may guide the designers

especially during geometry selection, although
there are very crucial questions arising:
how to choose the link and span lengths,
to what extend will these choices affect the
global inelastic behaviour and frame cost, etc.

Basic Goal of this study

To

investigate the effects of the frame

geometry on:
Frame weight,
Frame behaviour under earthquake
loading

Design Procedure
A computer program is coded for optimum
design of chevron EBFs with shear links,
thus the assigned sections are minimums
those meeting all of the code requirements.

Design Procedure
-DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS-

LRFD Specification (1999)

ASCE 7-05
AISC Seismic Provisions (2005)
Location Los Angeles, Site Class D (~C USGS)
Beams: A992, wide flange
Columns: A992, wide flange W14 series
Braces: A500-Grade B, rectangular hollow
sections with equal depth and width values

Properties of the designed frames

Number of stories, n

Plan Area, A (m2)

Span Length, L (cm) Link Length, e (cm)

3
6

600
800
1000

800
900
1000

60
75
90
105
120
________________________________________________________________

90

Total number of frames = 2x3x3x5=

Geometries of the designed frames

EBF

EBF

EBF

EBF
SIMPLE FRAME
EBF

Capacity Based Design

The

elements outside of the links should be

designed to resist the forces generated by the
fully yielded and strain hardened links.
If link web is properly detailed and restrained
with full-depth stiffeners, shear yielding of the link
would be the most ductile yielding mode. To
assure that shear yielding dominates the inelastic
behaviour of the link, link length should satisfy
the following condition:

1 .6 M p
Vp

Inelastic Analyses
DRAIN-2DX
Uang and Richards inelastic link element
model (Richards, 2004)
20 SAC ground motions of Los Angeles
with 2% probability of exceedence in 50
years
Rotation capacity of shear link is 0.08 rad.

Method used for assessment of the

seismic behaviour of the frames

Each earthquake record (for

each frame) is scaled in the

inelastic time history analyses until
one of the links of the frame
reaches the limit rotation angle of
0.08 radian as given in AISC
Seismic Provisions.

Method used for assessment of the

seismic behaviour of the frames

Scaling

of each earthquake record until

the frames limit state is an iterative and
time-consuming
procedure,
thus
a
computer program is coded.
For each iteration, the program modifies
drain input file by changing the scale factor,
and then starts drain.exe; this process is
repeated until the limit rotation angle of one
of the links is reached.

Method used for assessment of the

seismic behaviour of the frames

Number of 20 scale factors are evaluated

for each frame under SAC ground motions

and the mean value of the scale factors ()
is calculated.

In

order to compare the inelastic

behaviour of the frames basic parameter is
chosen as the mean scale factor.

Method used for assessment of the

seismic behaviour of the frames

In

order to consider the uncertainties of

the response of the same frame to different
earthquakes the coefficient of the variation
(COV) is also calculated.

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED FRAME WEIGHTS (~FRAME COSTS)

(a)

(b)

(c)

Effect of link length on the 3-storey frame weight (a) L=8 m, (b) L=9 m, (c) L=10 m
(vertical axis represents the ratios of frame weights to the weight of the frame with
the link length of 60 cm)

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED FRAME WEIGHTS (~FRAME COSTS)

(a)

(b)

(c)

Effect of link length on the 6-storey frame weight (a) L=8 m, (b) L=9 m, (c) L=10 m
(vertical axis represents the ratios of frame weights to the weight of the frame with
the link length of 60 cm)

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED FRAME WEIGHTS (~FRAME COSTS)

For

both 3-storey and 6-storey EBFs and for e

105cm , the normalized weight of the frames
tend to increase slightly with the increase of the
link length and reach to a maximum of
approximately 20%.
For the value of e>105 cm there is a sharp
increase that reaches to an average value of
nearly 35%, 40%, 50 % for the frames with the
span lengths of 8 m, 9 m and 10 m, respectively
for 3-storey EBFs. This sharp increase region is
comparatively smaller and more sensitive to the
plan area for 6-storey EBFs.

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED MEAN SCALE FACTORS

(a)

(b)

(c)

Effect of link length on the mean scale factors of 3-storey EBF (a) L=8 m, (b) L=9 m,
(c) L=10 m (vertical axis represents the ratios of mean scale factors to the factor of
the frame with the link length of 60 cm)

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED MEAN SCALE FACTORS

(a)

(b)

(c)

Effect of link length on the mean scale factors of 6-storey EBF (a) L=8 m, (b) L=9 m,
(c) L=10 m (vertical axis represents the ratios of mean scale factors to the factor of
the frame with the link length of 60 cm)

Results of the parametric studies

NORMALIZED MEAN SCALE FACTORS

For 3-storey EBF and for e 105cm , the

normalized mean scale factor tends to increase

slightly with the increase of the link length and
reaches to a maximum of approximately 20% and
for the value of e>105 cm there is generally a
sharp increase, but span length and plan area
have relatively greater effect in this region.
The results for 6-storey EBFs have shown that
with the increase of e values; there exists nearly
a constant increase in the mean scale factor ratios
and the effect of plan area increases in all regions.

Results of the parametric studies

COEFFICIENTS OF VARIATION OF SCALE FACTORS

(a)

(b)

Coefficients of variation of scale factors for (a) 3-storey EBF (b) 6-storey EBF

Results of the parametric studies

COEFFICIENTS OF VARIATION OF SCALE FACTORS

Coefficients

of variation (COVs) of mean scale

factors are between 0.3 and 0.45 for most of the
3-storey EBFs. There are few frames with COVs
bigger than 0.45 especially for the link lengths of
60cm and 75cm.
6-storey EBFs have COVs between 0.35 and
0.47 except for two frames with the link length of
60cm; these two frames have COV values below
0.35. The COV values of 6-storey EBFs are
relatively closer which indicates closer degrees of
uncertainty for the response calculated under
different earthquakes.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The

results of the parametric studies indicate that;

among the code based designed frames with the same
loads and load combinations, plan area, span length, and
storey height, but with different link lengths, the frame
weight increase can reach a maximum value of nearly
60% and the mean scale factor increase can reach a
maximum value of approximately 85%.

If the designers have approximate information about the

results of link length selection at the beginning of the

design procedure, this may change their choices; because
one can choose economy rather than more safety or vice
versa.

Thank you for your attention