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.

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