Shaking table test on single‐story rocking‐column steel frame under excitations along strong axis

A single‐story controlled rocking‐column steel frame with self‐centering frictional connections is proposed in this paper. The frame is designed to rock when subjected to excitations beyond the frequent earthquake level. A shaking table test is conducted on a 1/3 scaled single‐story rocking‐column steel frame to investigate its dynamic responses under excitations along strong‐axis direction of the frictional connections. The structure is subjected to a sequence of excitations with increasing intensities till the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) level. The test results indicate that the proposed system can achieve a low‐damage structural design with almost zero residual drift ratio and only minor local material yielding. In addition, a design method for the proposed rocking‐column steel frame is also presented. At last, a finite element model is established by Abaqus to predict the seismic responses of the proposed structure with pretty good accuracy.