8 Conclusions
A new earthquake resisting structural system incorporating post tensioned RRCs and MFs has been presented. Vertical and horizontal stressed tendons, gap opening devices as well as BRBs have been provided to ensure collapse prevention and active re-centering. Both Horizontal and vertical post-tensioned devices produce resisting moments to service loading along the frame and provide restoring forces that tend to return the damaged MF and the RRC to their pre-earthquake position. The paper also provides a basis for developing sustainable earthquake resisting structures in the future.
Global Design Led analysis which is a new analytic approach has been used to develop exact, closed form solutions for RCMFs under gravity and lateral loading conditions. The proposed mathematical model is ideally suited for manual preliminary design of such systems. The proposed configuration is both construction friendly and satisfies the theoretical conditions of minimum weight design. Several examples have been provided to verify and demonstrate the applications of the proposed formulations. Two new gap opening link mechanisms, one for steel and the other for concrete structures that do not induce unwanted moments in the columns have also been introduced.
