Local Buckling Behavior of Buckling-Restrained Braces with Longitudinally Profiled Steel Core

One of the most important requirements for a well-designed buckling restrained brace (BRB) under severe earthquake loading is to ensure its stability until the brace achieves sufficient elasto-plastic deformation. This study presents the finite element analysis results of the proposed buckling restrained brace with a longitudinally profiled steel core (LPBRB). The objective of the analyses is to conduct a performance evaluation of the proposed LPBRBs, and to perform a parameter study with different clearance, width:thickness ratio, mortar strength, and friction coefficient for investigating the local buckling behavior of the LPBRBs. Numerical analyses results demonstrate that the LPBRBs exhibited good ductile performance and stable hysteretic behavior. The local buckling failure can be predicted by the demand:capacity ratio formula. The friction coefficient has little influence on the hysteretic behavior of LPBRBs. The local stability can be improved by adopting the mortar with higher compression strength or the LP core with lower width:thickness ratio. The proposed LPBRBs have a similar hysteretic response to the conventional BRBs.