Study on Seismic Robustness of Displacement Restraint PC Steel Bar Braces to Uncertain Variations of Initial Gap Length

Abstract

In the structural design of buildings, the occurrence of earthquakes must be treated as uncertain phenomena. It is undesirable to design structures so that safety is maintained only against a few specific types of seismic motion. Thus, uncertainty must be considered in the design. The seismic robustness of a structure can be defined by the little variation in the seismic response when subjected to uncertain disturbances and/or changes in structural parameters. Order statistics can be used as an index of seismic robustness. In this study, a robust design method using order statistics is applied to evaluate the seismic robustness of the displacement restraint PC steel bar brace in response to uncertain variation of the initial gap length.