The use of high strength (HS) steel in seismic applications is very attractive due to economical and mechanical benefits. The combined use of HSS for non-dissipative members and MCS for dissipative zones is generally termed “dual-steel” concept and it could likely represent a valuable aid to satisfy capacity design criteria and to control the global frame behaviour, even contemporarily reducing the constructional cost. The current paper investigates the benefits of applying dual-steel concept to the seismic design of eccentrically braced frames equipped with short links in the framework of EN 1998-1:2005. With this purpose, a comprehensive numerical parametric study has been carried out: both static and dynamic nonlinear analyses have been performed to investigate the advantages of using HSS to enhance strength and ductility of a set of mid- and high-rise simple and dual eccentrically braced frames.
