Assessment of the Role of Element Arrangement in Uniform Stress Distribution within the StrongBack Braced System with Steel Brace

Authors

Faculty of Engineering, University of Golestan, Golestan, Iran

Abstract

The steel concentrically braced frame (CBF) is among the most widely used structural systems, offering economic efficiency, adequate stiffness, and high strength. However, despite these advantages, the system exhibits several critical limitations. One of the main issues is that brace buckling frequently leads to a reduction in ductility, energy dissipation capacity, and a significant decrease in strength and stiffness, often resulting in the formation of a soft-story mechanism. To overcome this problem, the strongback braced frame has been introduced in recent years as a solution. This system comprises an elastic truss, which promotes uniform lateral deformation along the height of the structure, and a nonlinear segment, which is responsible for yielding behavior and energy dissipation. This study presents a numerical investigation of the impact of different strongback system configurations on structural performance. Initially, the modeling approach is validated by comparing it with existing experimental and numerical results. Once validated, cyclic analyses are carried out on various models to assess their behavior. The evaluation of system configuration is organized into three parts: (1) analyzing the effect of yielding ties, (2) examining the arrangement of elastic and inelastic braces, and (3) studying the influence of bay geometry on the overall performance of the strongback frame.

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Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Volume 56, Issue 123 - Serial Number 123
Summer 2026
September 2026
Pages 59-74

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