Equivalent Energy Design Procedure for Earthquake Resilient Fused Structures

Recent earthquakes worldwide have shown that even countries with modern building codes suffer significant structural damages after a strong earthquake shaking. The issue lies in the design philosophy that earthquake energy is absorbed through inelastic deformation of structural components. This creates unrecoverable structural damages and prolonged recovery time. These deficiencies can be minimized using earthquake resilient structures where earthquake energy is dissipated by specially designed structural fuses. Fuses are decoupled from gravity system, and hence, they can be replaced efficiently without affecting the functionality of a structure after an earthquake. This research program aims to provide an alternative design approach for engineers to design and implement such fused structures.

It has been observed in recent earthquakes worldwide that even countries with modern building codes suffer significant structural damages because earthquake energy is dissipated through inelastic deformation of structural components. Unrecoverable damages and prolonged downtime can be minimized using earthquake resilient structures, where earthquake energy is dissipated using specially designed and detailed structural fuses. Fuses are decoupled from gravity system and can be replaced efficiently. Earthquake resilient fused structures cannot be routinely designed unless there is a simple design procedure. This research program develops an equivalent energy design procedure (EEDP) for the seismic design of fused structures. EEDP allows designers to select different performance objectives at different earthquake shaking intensities. EEDP also allows engineers to select structural members to achieve the desired structural period, strength, and deformation with simple hand calculations and without iterations. This practical and efficient design procedure has been applied to various innovative earthquake resilient fused systems such as linked column frames, fused truss moment frames, fused steel diagrid frames, controlled rocking concentrically braced frames, and outrigger-wall buildings.

 

 

Reference: T.Y. Yang, Dorian P. Tung, and Yuanjie Li (2017) “Equivalent Energy Design Procedure for Earthquake Resilient Fused Structures.” Earthquake Spectra In-Press.