Cyclic full-scale test of a two-story special steel beam-through braced frame for industrialized steel residential house

This paper presents an overview of the full-scale test on a two-story, four-span by one-Span Special Steel Beam-Through Braced Frame (SSBTBF). This type of SSBTBF system features very slender bracing members, cold-formed hollow structural section columns connected to H-section through beams by end plate with bearing-type high-strength bolts, and is commonly used in low-rise industrialized steel house construction. The test was conducted to characterize the cyclic behavior of SSBTBF. Stable behavior was observed up to a story drift angle of 1/10. The cyclic behavior was characterized by a linear response, a slip range and a significant hardening response. Pinching behavior was notable for cyclic loading primarily because of cyclic brace compression buckling and tension yielding. Steel braces and steel frame contribute simultaneously to lateral stiffness of the structure. After ductile yielding of braces and beam-to-column connections, the structure's lateral stiffness decreases greatly. The inelastic action through the local beam flange deformation in the connection is a ductile yielding mechanism. Pushover analyses using ABAQUS software are very reasonable to predict the elastic stiffness and the strength.