Constant‐ductility inelastic displacement ratios for displacement‐based seismic design of self‐centering structures

Summary This paper focuses on constant‐ductility inelastic displacement ratios of self‐centering single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDF) systems with two different levels of energy dissipation capacity, in the presence of 5% viscous damping ratio. A statistical analysis is developed considering an earthquake database composed of 228 ground motions recorded in California with magnitudes greater than six and organized for NEHRP soil class, ground motion duration, and peak ground acceleration. The response of self‐centering SDF systems with large variability of initial periods, ductility levels, and postyield stiffness ratios is investigated and compared with the responses of SDF systems with bilinear plastic, Clough, and Takeda hysteresis. The inelastic demand variation with soil class, initial period, postyield stiffness ratio, unloading stiffness degradation, ductility level, and hysteretic behavior is highlighted. Simple and conservative analytical estimates of constant‐ductility inelastic displacement ratios for mean and 90th percentile values in terms of initial period, ductility level, and postyield stiffness ratio are proposed to allow the extension of the Displacement‐Based Design via Inelastic Displacement Ratio ( C μ DBD) to self‐centering structural systems.