CoreBraceCoreBrace Buckling Restrained Braces

CoreBrace's casing-and-grout construction lets the steel core reach full steel strength, so the brace resists nearly the same load in compression as in tension. That behavior allows single-diagonal brace layouts without the design penalties a buckling brace would carry, reducing the brace count and shrinking frame columns, beams, connections, and foundations.

A single-product focus supports the offering: the company fabricates buckling restrained braces only, at an AISC-certified plant, and reports more than 100 full-scale brace tests. Its bolted, welded, and pinned connection range, the reCOREder post-earthquake capacity device, and an Environmental Product Declaration for its braces that aids LEED, WELL, and Buy Clean California compliance give specifying engineers a combination competitors do not match across the board.

CoreBrace entered the United States buckling restrained brace market in 2002, when the company was incorporated. Independent testing followed at the University of California, San Diego: a 2003 structural research report covered subassemblage testing of CoreBrace buckling restrained braces, and later reports extended that program to the company's G-Series and NZ-Series braces.

The engineering program continued over the following two decades. A 2022 paper by company and academic authors on assessing the low-cycle fatigue life of CoreBrace braces was awarded best paper for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, and the company has since expanded its fabrication facility, staff, and production capacity.

Seismic codes and green-building rules shape demand for buckling restrained braces. Building codes recognize the improved seismic behavior of buckling restrained braced frames, and programs such as LEED, WELL, and Buy Clean California reward documented life-cycle performance, which is what CoreBrace's Environmental Product Declaration addresses.

CoreBrace is one of three United States manufacturers of the technology, and it competes with friction and viscous damper suppliers and other yielding devices for the same seismic protection scope. The company has expanded its Utah fabrication facility and staff to meet demand, and its braces have gone into projects in the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Haiti.

CoreBrace buckling restrained braces are steel seismic elements in which a yielding steel core runs inside a grout-filled steel tube casing, with a proprietary interface material separating the two so friction stays low. The casing confines the core, letting it reach full steel strength in compression as well as tension, which keeps axial capacity essentially equal in both directions and removes the overstrength a buckling brace would require.

CoreBrace fabricates the braces at its own US plant and offers three connection families, bolted lug, welded, and pinned, with square, rectangular, or round casing and shop-applied coatings, galvanizing, or AESS finishes. The reCOREder device records a brace's remaining capacity after an earthquake. Applications span stadiums, airports, hospitals, laboratories, libraries, museums, parking structures, and mass-timber buildings across the United States and internationally.