The one-bay and three-story concentrically braced frame built in the zone with a seismic design intensity of 8 degree was constructed with 1：4 scale, and tested using shaking table under 24 different earthquake ground motions to explore the seismic performance of special concentrically braced frame with pinned connections and the failure mode of braced system. The influence of the secondary moments on the columns and the beams was obtained. The results show that, the test model under intensity 8 frequent and rare earthquakes are all less than their limit values pursuant to the GB 50011—2010 code. The structure not only survived after the rare earthquake, even owned a certain security reserve after a series of strong earthquakes. It indicates that the structure system owns good seismic performance in the high seismic region. The secondary moments on the columns and the beams induced by the gusset plate connections become significant especially after the out-of-plane buckling of the braces. Based on the test results under a series of strong earthquakes, the seismic design principle, e.g. strong-connection-weak-member in the braces, is perfectly achieved.