Influence of gravity connections and damper activation forces on the seismic behavior of steel CBF buildings with dissipative floor connectors

Abstract This paper investigates the influence of typical gravity connections on seismic demands steel concentrically braced frame (CBF) buildings with friction dampers as dissipative floor connectors. The investigated include (i) shear tab, (ii) clip angle, (iii) flush end‐plate and (iv) tab bottom T‐stub. It is shown that behavior framing system (GFS) practically insensitive to connection type because supplemental damping provided by connectors dominates response GFS. While T‐stub generally exhibit smaller rotational than more flexible connections, resultant lateral drift in GFS are more‐or‐less identical all cases due elastic contribution columns. A simplified method proposed evaluate damper activation forces multi‐story CBF equipped sliding dampers. First, building transformed into an equivalent single‐degree‐of‐freedom system. Subsequently, dual graphics called P‐spectra generated through nonlinear history analysis. These allow estimate peak absolute acceleration peak/residual roof displacements a function An application example demonstrates can be reliably employed pre‐design phase identify range which optimal performance may anticipated.