Peak and residual responses of steel moment-resisting and braced frames under pulse-like near-fault earthquakes

Abstract This paper presents the behaviour of steel moment resisting and braced frames under pulse-like near-fault earthquakes. The key properties for characterizing near-fault ground motions with forward directivity and fling step effects are discussed, and the influence of varying brace properties on the key engineering demand parameters such as maximum inter-storey drift (MID), residual inter-storey drift (RID) and peak absolute floor acceleration (PA) is revealed. Among other findings, it is shown that the structural responses are related to spectral accelerations, PGV/PGA ratios, and the pulse period of near-fault ground motions. The moment resisting and self-centring braced frames (MRFs and SC-BRBFs) generally have comparable MID levels, while the buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs) tend to exhibit lower MIDs. Increasing the post-yield stiffness of the braces decreases the MID response. The SC-BRBFs generally have mean residual drifts less than 0.2% under all the considered ground motions. However, much larger RIDs are induced for the MRFs/BRBFs under the near-fault ground motions, suggesting that these structures may not be economically repairable after the earthquakes. From a non-structural performance point of view, the SC-BRBFs show much higher PA levels compared with the other structures. A good balance among the MID, RID, and PA responses can be achieved when “partial” SC-BRBs are used. To facilitate performance-based design, RID prediction models are finally proposed which enable an effective evaluation of the relationship between MID and RID.