Seismic design of concentric braced frames

In this paper some modifications to the design procedure, currently implemented in the modern European seismic code for ductile cross concentric braced frames (X-CBFs), are proposed. The code procedure is aimed to obtain a ductile and dissipative ultimate behaviour by imposing that the yielding of diagonal members occurs before the damage and premature failure of beams, columns and connections (capacity design); this approach, involving overstrength requirements and diagonal slenderness limitations, strongly affects the design of CBFs and generally leads to oversized structural solutions, thus suggesting a high weight premium related to the capacity design. The approach proposed by the authors in this paper consists of some modifications to the current design provisions of the European seismic codes, with the major aim of controlling the overstrength requirements to the non-dissipative members of braced frames, thus reducing the associated structural weight premium while preserving a satisfactory inelastic behaviour. In order to assess the reliability of the proposed approach, the results of non-linear FE analyses are presented in the paper with reference to three, and six‐ and nine‐storey buildings, for which different structural solutions are designed according to the current and the proposed approaches.