Hysteretic Behavior of Compressive Braces upon Repeated Cyclic Loading Based on the Review of Existing Data

Design and detailing requirements of seismic provisions for Concentrically Braced Frames (CBF) were specified based on the premise that bracing members with large KL/r and low b/t have superior seismic performance. However, relatively few tests have been done to investigate the cyclic behavior of CBF. Therefore, the question lies on whether the compression member of CBF plays as significant a role as what has been typically assumed by design providers. In this paper, existing experimental data were reviewed to quantify the extent of hysteretic energy achieved by bracing members in past compression tests as well as the extent of degradation of the compression force given repeated cycling loading.