Rocking Steel Coupled Frames for Seismic Retrofit of RC Buildings

This study focuses on the design and evaluation of rocking steel coupled frames used as a dissipative exoskeleton for seismic retrofitting of RC buildings, using a real case-study school building. The design employs a displacement-based approach, with the structural fuses made of dumbbell-shaped steel strips selected to prevent stress concentration, plastic strain accumulation, and buckling failures. The retrofit strategy's effectiveness is validated through nonlinear time-history analyses with different earthquake ground motion scenarios.