Abstract: When the braces in the centrally braced steel frame are connected with the beam-column of the frame, the triaxial stress field is easy to occur in the joint area, which leads to brittle failure. To address this issue, ductile casting connectors are used instead of nodal plates and beam-column connections and conducts numerical simulations to analyze the mechanical performance of buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) with ductile cast connections under cyclic loading. The failure mode, hysteretic curve, and energy dissipation of of these BRBs were analyzed. Additionally, the effects of the length of energy-dissipating section, energy dissipation plate, and stiffener of ductile castings on the performance of BRBs are analyzed. The results indicate that, under loading, the energy-dissipating segment of the cast connection is the first to yield.. With the increase of load, the supporting core tube enters into the plastic stage and consume energy together with the casting connector. The hysteretic curves of BRBs with ductile casting connector exhibit a stable and symmetrical shape, demonstrating excellent energy dissipation capacity.

Key words: ductile casting, buckling-restrained brace, finite element analysis, cyclic load