column base connections seismic sustainability

Modern codes for seismic-resistant structures adopt the philosophy that strong earthquakes must be resisted bydissipative members while the rest non-dissipative members remain elastic and free of damage. typical dissipativemembers are the beams in moment resisting frames (mrfs) and the diagonal braces in the concentrically braced frames(cbfs) while the columns can be considered as non-dissipative members. the damage of structural components as wellas the residual drifts can be significant and may lead to high repair costs and disruption of building use or occupation. toaddress these socio-economic risks, significant research has been given in the development of low damage structureswhich can reduce both repair costs and downtime. examples of such structures include steel frames with self-centeringbeam-column connections, self-centering braces, viscous damping devices and others. these earthquake-resilient steelframe typologies have been extensively studied during the last decade but little attention has been paid to the behavior oftheir column bases. conventional steel column bases typically consist of an exposed steel base plate supported on groutand tied to the concrete foundation using steel anchor rods.