• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.623-633
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• 2019

A large number of available concrete buildings designed only considering gravity load that require seismic rehabilitation because of failure to meet plasticity criteria. Using steel bracings are a common type of seismic rehabilitation. The eccentric bracings with vertical link reduce non-elastic deformation imposed on concrete members as well as elimination of probable buckling problems of bracings. In this study, three concrete frames of 10, 15, and 20 stories designed only for gravity load have been considered for seismic improvement using performance-based plastic design. Afterwards, nonlinear time series analysis was employed to evaluate seismic behavior of the models in two modes including before and after rehabilitation. The results revealed that shear link can yield desirable performance with the least time, cost and number of bracings of concrete frames. Also, it was found that the seismic rehabilitation can reduce maximum relative displacement in the middle stories about 40 to 80 percent. Generally, findings of this study demonstrated that the eccentric bracing with vertical link can be employed as a suitable proxy to achieve better seismic performance for existing high rise concrete frames.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.47-60
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• 2012

Based on the Korean Building Standard Law, a building less than 3-stories and $1000m^2$ in area is defined as a small-level building and, as a result, this type of building has been excluded from the requirement to comply with seismic design. In order to prevent the loss of life and property under earthquake loadings, the small-scale building should satisfy the seismic performance specified in the current code through a seismic retrofit. In this study, a seismic retrofit scheme of a Buckling-Restrained Knee Brace (BRKB) was developed for non-seismic 2-story steel buildings, including small-scale buildings, using a fragility contour method. In order to develop an effective retrofit scheme of the BRKB for the building, a total of 75 BRKB analytical models were used to achieve the desired performance levels and analyzed using the fragility contour method. The seismic performance of the retrofitted building was evaluated in terms of the weight of the developed BRKB systems. This study shows that the fragility contour method can be used for rapid evaluation and is an effective tool for structural engineers.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2015

Recently, new keywords such as "Resilience" and "Repairability" have been discussed from the perspective of the sustainability of damaged structures after a severe disaster. To evaluate the repairability and recovery of structures, it is necessary to establish an analytical method that can simulate the behavior of repaired structures. Furthermore, it is desirable to establish an evaluation method for the structural performance of repaired structures. This study investigates the repairability and recovery of steel members that are damaged by local buckling or cracks. This paper suggests a simple analytical model for repaired steel members, in order to simulate the inelastic behavior and evaluate the recoverability of the structural performance. There is good agreement between the analytical results and the test results. The proposed analytical method and model can effectively evaluate the recoverability.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.545-554
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• 2018

This study presents a novel method of improving the strength and stiffness of cold-formed steel (CFS) beams. Flexural members are primary members in most of the structures. Hence, there is an urgent need in the CFS industry to look beyond the conventional CFS beam sections and develop novel techniques to address the severe local buckling problems that exist in CFS flexural members. The primary objective of this study was to develop new CFS composite beam sections with improved structural performance and economy. This paper presents an experimental study conducted on different CFS composite beams with simply supported end conditions under four point loading. Material properties and geometric imperfections of the models were measured. The test strengths of the models are compared with the design strengths predicted by using Australian/New Zealand Standard for cold-formed steel structures. Furthermore, to ensure high precision testing, a special testing rig was also developed for testing of long span beams. The description of test models, testing rig features and test results are presented here. For better interpretation of results, a comparison of the test results with a hot rolled section is also presented. The test results have shown that the proposed CFS composite beams are promising both in terms of better structural performance as well as economy.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.251-269
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• 2016

In common structural systems, there are some limitations to provide adequate lateral stiffness, high ductility, and architectural openings simultaneously. Consequently, the concept of T-Resisting Frame (TRF) has been introduced to improve the performance of structures. In this study, Configuration of TRF is a Vertical I-shaped Plate Girder (V.P.G) which is placed in the middle of the span and connected to side columns by two Horizontal Plate Girders (H.P.Gs) at each story level. System performance is improved by utilizing rigid connections in link beams (H.P.Gs). Plastic deformation leads to tension field action in H.P.Gs and causes energy dissipation in TRF; therefore, V.P.G. High plastic deformation in web of TRF's members affects the ductility of system. Moreover, in order to prevent shear buckling in web of TRF's members and improve overall performance of the system, appropriate criteria for placement of web stiffeners are presented in this study. In addition, an experimental study is conducted by applying cyclic loading and using finite element models. As a result, hysteresis curves indicate adequate lateral stiffness, stable hysteretic behavior, and high ductility factor of 6.73.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1193-1219
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the seismic performance of high-rise reinforced concrete (RC) box-type wall structures commonly used for most residential buildings in Korea. For this purpose, an analytical model was calibrated with the results of the earthquake simulation tests on a 1:5 scale 10-story distorted model. This calibrated model was then transformed to a true model. The performance of the true model in terms of the stiffness, strength, and damage distribution through inelastic energy dissipation was observed with reference to the earthquake simulation test results. The model showed high overstrength factors ranging from 3 to 4. The existence of slab in this box-type wall system changed the main resistance mode in the wall from bending moment to tension/compression coupled moment through membrane actions, and increased the overall resistance capacity by about 25~35%, in comparison with the common design practice of neglecting the slab's existence. The flexibility of foundation, which is also commonly neglected in the engineering design, contributes to 30~50% of the roof drift in the stiff direction containing many walls. The possibility of concrete spalling and reinforcement buckling and fracture under the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) in Korea appears to be very low when compared with the case of the 2010 Concepcion, Chile earthquake.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.667-689
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• 2014

Structural walls (also known as shear walls) are one of the common lateral load resisting elements in reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in seismic regions. The performance of RC structural walls in recent earthquakes has exposed some problems with the existing design of RC structural walls. The main issues lie around the buckling of bars, out-of plane deformation of the wall (especially the zone deteriorated in compression), reinforcement getting snapped beneath a solitary thin crack etc. This study compares performance of a typical wall designed by different standards. For this purpose, a case study RC shear wall is taken from the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Christchurch which was designed according to the 1982 version of the New Zealand concrete structures standard (NZS3101:1982). The wall is redesigned in this study to comply with the detailing requirements of three standards; ACI-318-11, NZS3101:2006 and Eurocode 8 in such a way that they provide the same flexural and shear capacity. Based on section analysis and pushover analysis, nonlinear responses of the walls are compared in terms of their lateral load capacity and curvature as well as displacement ductilities, and the effect of the code limitations on nonlinear responses of the different walls are evaluated. A parametric study is also carried out to further investigate the effect of confinement length and axial load ratio on the lateral response of shear walls.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.2
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• pp.201-214
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• 2020

This study aims at evaluating composite moment frame structures (CFS) using wavelet analysis of the displacement behavior of these structures. Five seismic damage mitigation systems' models of 9-story CFS are examined namely, basic (Model 1), reinforced (Model 2), buckling restrained braced (BRB) (Model 3), lead rubber bearing (LRB) (Model 4), and composite (Model 5) moment frames. A novel integration between continuous and discrete wavelet transforms is designed to estimate the wavelet power energy and variance of measurements' behaviors. The behaviors of the designed models are evaluated under influence of four seismic loads to study the dynamic performance of CFS in the frequency domain. The results show the behaviors of models 3 and 5 are lower than other models in terms of displacement and frequency performances. Model 3 has been shown lower performances in terms of energy and variance wavelets along the monitoring time; therefore, Model 3 demonstrates superior performance and low probability of failure under seismic loads. Furthermore, the wavelet variance analysis is shown a powerful tool that can be used to assess the CFS under seismic hazards.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2016

Seismic isolation is often used in protecting mission-critical structures including hospitals, data centers, telecommunication buildings, etc. Such structures typically house vibration-sensitive equipment which has to provide continued service but may fail in case sustained accelerations during earthquakes exceed threshold limit values. Thus, peak floor acceleration is one of the two main parameters that control the design of such structures while the other one is peak base displacement since the overall safety of the structure depends on the safety of the isolation system. And in case peak base displacement exceeds the design base displacement during an earthquake, rupture and/or buckling of isolators as well as bumping against stops around the seismic gap may occur. Therefore, obtaining accurate peak floor accelerations and peak base displacement is vital. However, although nominal design values for isolation system and superstructure parameters are calculated in order to meet target peak design base displacement and peak floor accelerations, their actual values may potentially deviate from these nominal design values. In this study, the sensitivity of the seismic performance of structures equipped with linear and nonlinear seismic isolation systems to the aforementioned potential deviations is assessed in the context of a benchmark shear building under different earthquake records with near-fault and far-fault characteristics. The results put forth the degree of sensitivity of peak top floor acceleration and peak base displacement to superstructure parameters including mass, stiffness, and damping and isolation system parameters including stiffness, damping, yield strength, yield displacement, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.699-712
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• 2015

Bracing structures with off-centre bracing system is one of the new resistant systems that frequently used in the frame with pin connections. High ductility, high-energy dissipation and decrease of base shear are advantages of this bracing system. However, beside these advantages, reconstruction and hard repair of off-centre bracing system cause inappropriate performance in the earthquake. Therefore, in this paper, the goal is investigating the behavior of this type of bracing system with ductile element (circular dissipater), in order to providing replacement of damaged member without needing repair or reconstruction of the general system. To achieve this purpose, some numerical studies have been performed using ANSYS software, a frame with off-centre bracing system and optimum eccentricity (OBS-C-O) and another frame with the same identifications without ductile element (OBS) has been created. In order to investigate precisely on the optimum placement of circular elements under monotonic load again three steal frames were modeled. Furthermore, the behavior of this general system investigated for the first time, linear and nonlinear behavior of these two steel frames compared to each other, to achieve the benefit of using the circular element in an off-centre bracing system. Eventually, the analytical results revealed that the performance of steel ring at the end of off-centre braces system illustrating as a first defensive line and buckling fuse in the off-centre bracing system.