Seismic vulnerability evaluation of axially loaded steel built-up laced members I: Experimental results

An experimental program was initiated to investigate the seismic performance of built-up laced steel brace members. Quasi-static testing of twelve typical steel built-up laced member (BLM) specimens was conducted. These were designed to span a range of parameters typically encountered for such members based on findings from a survey of commonly used shapes and details that have been historically used. The specimens were subdivided into groups of three different cross-sectional shapes, namely built-up I-shape section, and built-up box shapes buckling about the x or the y axis. Within each group, global and local buckling slenderness ratios had either kl/r values of 60 or 120, and b/t ratios of 8 or 16. The specific inelastic cyclic behavior germane to each specimen, and general observations on overall member hysteretic behavior as a function of the considered parameters, are reported. A companion paper (Lee and Bruneau 2008) investigates this observed response against predictions from analytical models, and behavior in the perspective of system performance.