Seismic Performance of a Variable Stiffness System

In this paper a new ribbed bracing system (RBS) is proposed capable of performing as avariable stiffness system that can be used for controlling structural deformations and frequency shifting to compensate seismic energy. RBS has two important advantages. Because of ribbed system, the compressive member is rigidly moved like a piston and a cylinder and therefore it is a buckling prevented system. Also it is possible to use this system as a semi-active system by considering the story drifts and global structural damage and control the system if it is necessary to be open or closed based on the operational criteria assigned in the system. RBS has no need to any actuator and large power supply, but just a battery-size power supply to switch the ribbed mechanism to be on or off. RBS is composed of a ribbed supplemental part and a normal wind-bracing on each floor. Considering an appropriate criterion based on the storey drift, minimum number of bracing systems will be active on the height of struطcture during earthquake. In contrast with completely closed RBS (CC-RBS) by on-off bracing system arranged along the height of the building cause period shifting of the structure to the larger value. Three stages are considered in the numerical studies: conventional bracing frame (CBF), CC-RBS and semi-active RBS (SA-RBS). Damage indices and Fourier transforms arecalculated in order to discuss on the efficiency of the proposed system. Nonlinear dynamicanalysis of system has been carried out and structural behaviour has been investigated. Numerical results show the efficiency of CC-RBS in reducing structural damage andimproving seismic energy. Also base shear is reduced when SA-RBS is used and structuraldamage is more uniform in this case.