Estimating the Stiffness of Eccentrically Braced Frames
Publication: Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 15, Issue 1
Abstract
The stiffness of eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) is difficult to calculate by hand because they are indeterminate and have significant flexural, shear, and axial deformations in various members. EBF stiffness is important because it is used to compute story drifts and link rotations which have prescribed limits. This note presents an equation for the stiffness of an EBF story in terms of the design story shear, frame geometry, and beam depth. The equation is independent of specific member sizes, making it useful for determining appropriate geometry in early design. The equation is developed theoretically and validated with data from code compliant EBFs. One application of the equation is the direct calculation of the minimum beam depth required to ensure a link will satisfy inelastic rotation limits.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was possible due to the support of Brigham Young University (BYU). Rodolfo Villalba, former graduate student at BYU, assisted in the design of the EBFs used for the validation study.
References
AISC. (2005). Seismic provisions for structural steel buildings, American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago.
AISC. (2006). Manual of steel construction, 13th Ed., American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago.
Englekirk, R. (1994). Steel structures: Controlling behavior through design, Wiley, New York, 481–484.
Horne, J. P., Rubbo, A., and Malley, J. O. (2001). “AISC-LRFD design and optimization of steel eccentrically braced frames.” Proc. 70th Annual SEAOC Meeting, San Diego.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 15 • Issue 1 • February 2010
Pages: 91 - 95
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 24, 2008
Accepted: Apr 8, 2009
Published online: Apr 13, 2009
Published in print: Feb 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.