Design and seismic response of modified suspended zipper braced frames

•A new modified suspended zipper braced frame (RZBF) is proposed.•The RZBF models show good seismic performance during earthquakes.•Compared with SZBF, RZBF saves more steel material as the increase of stories.

In a conventional suspended zipper braced frame (SZBF), the required strength of zipper columns and top story braces increases rapidly with the number of stories, resulting in unacceptable cross sections for these members. To overcome these drawbacks, a new modified suspended zipper braced frame (RZBF) is proposed in this paper. Compared with SZBF, the two central ideas of RZBF are that the unbalanced vertical forces at each story do not reach the maximum values simultaneously, and that the braced beams can transfer part of the unbalanced vertical forces during earthquakes. In order to understand better the seismic performance and design advantages of RZBF, nonlinear time history analyses were conducted on 3, 6, 10, 15, and 18-story RZBF and SZBF models. Comparison of the results obtained demonstrates the efficiency and viability of RZBF. Moreover, it is shown that the RZBF saves more steel material as the number of stories increases.