Post-earthquake repairability enhancement of BRBFs considering isotropic hardening with self-centering braces

This research's aim is to develop a novel peak and residual deformation-targeted design (PRBD) procedure for enhancing BRBF's post-earthquake repairability with self-centering braces (SCBs). To this end, the peak and residual displacement demands of improved BRBFs (denoted as RBRBFs) were studied by single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system analyses, where the isotropic hardening features of BRBs were properly considered. The hysteretic behavior's effects of SCBs on the RBRBF's peak and residual displacements were comprehensively investigated. Artificial neural network (ANN) models were developed for predicting the displacement demands of RBRBFs. Based on the developed ANN model, the PRBD was subsequently proposed. Two design cases were presented based on the developed PRBD method with different design objectives. The designed RBRBFs' performance was investigated via dynamic analyses. It can be found from the results that RBRBFs can achieve the desired peak and residual displacements under design earthquakes, validating the effectiveness of the developed PRBD. Moreover, the excellent post-earthquake repairability of RBRBFs with the partial self-centering feature was confirmed by showing residual displacements lower than 0.2% under maximum considered earthquakes.