Seismic performance of a damage avoidance self-centring brace with collapse prevention mechanism

Abstract The Resilient Slip Friction Joint (RSFJ) has recently been developed and introduced to the construction industry. This joint is a friction-based energy dissipation device that owing to its special configuration can provide energy absorption and self-centring behaviour in one package. This device is most applicable when the designers consider a damage avoidance philosophy of design. One of the applications of this device is the RSFJ brace. In this bracing system, the required seismic performance is provided by the RSFJ and the rest of the brace components are aimed to stay elastic. This paper introduces the RSFJ bracing system including the collapse-prevention fuse. This built-in fuse works in a way that when the applied force exceeds the design load, the secondary fuse is activated and the RSFJ brace is still able to provide self-centring up to twice the target deformation with an axial force of up to 1.25 times of the target design force. The performance of this fuse is investigated by experimental tests on the component level and the results are presented. Moreover, a numerical model for a five story steel structure with RSFJ braces is developed and was subjected to non-linear static pushover and nonlinear dynamic time-history simulations in order to investigate the seismic performance of the proposed system. The findings of this research shows that the RSFJ brace system can offer substantial performance benefits and has the merit to be considered as an efficient alternative for the current bracing systems.