• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.763-774
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• 2012

Reinforced concrete frame structures with masonry infill walls constitute the significant portion of the building stock in Turkey. Therefore it is very important to understand the behavior of masonry infill frame structures under earthquake loads. This study presents an experimental work performed on reinforced concrete (RC) frames with different types of masonry infills, namely standard and locked bricks. Earthquake effects are induced on the RC frames by quasi-static tests. Results obtained from different frames are compared with each other through various stiffness, strength, and energy related parameters. It is shown that locked bricks may prove useful in decreasing the problems related to horizontal and vertical irregularities defined in building codes. Moreover tests show that locked brick infills maintain their integrity up to very high drift levels, showing that they may have a potential in reducing injuries and fatalities related to falling hazards during severe ground shakings.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.123-137
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• 2022

The fundamental period (FP) is one of the most critical parameters for the seismic design of structures. In the reinforced concrete (RC) infilled frame, the infill walls significantly affect the FP because they change the stiffness and mass of the structure. Although several formulas have been proposed for estimating the FP of the RC infilled frame, they are often associated with high bias and variance. In this study, an efficient soft computing model, namely the group method of data handling (GMDH), is proposed to predict the FP of regular RC infilled frames. For this purpose, 4026 data sets are obtained from the open literature, and the quality of the database is examined and evaluated in detail. Based on the cleaning database, several GMDH models are constructed and the best prediction model, which considers the height of the building, the span length, the opening percentage, and the infill wall stiffness as the input variables for predicting the FP of regular RC infilled frames, is chosen. The performance of the proposed GMDH model is further underscored through comparison of its FP predictions with those of existing design codes and empirical models. The accuracy of the proposed GMDH model is proven to be superior to others. Finally, explicit formulas and a graphical user-friendly interface (GUI) tool are developed to apply the GMDH model for practical use. They can provide a rapid prediction and design for the FP of regular RC infilled frames.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.523-532
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• 2010

If an infill wall in a reinforced concrete frame is shorter than the column height and there is no initial gap between the column and the infill wall, the short column effect can occur during an earthquake shaking. This form of damage is frequently observed in many earthquake-damaged buildings all around the world and especially in Turkey. In this study, an effective method, which consists of placing additional infill wall segments surrounding the short column, to prevent this type of failure is examined. The influence of adding infill wall in the reduction of the shear force in the short column is also investigated. A parametric study is carried out for one-storey infilled frames with one to five bays using the percentage of the additional infill wall surrounding the short column and the number of spans as the parameters. Then the investigation is extended to a case of a multistorey building damaged due to short column effect during the 1998 Adana-Ceyhan earthquake in Turkey. The results show that the addition of the infill walls around the potential short columns is an effective way to significantly reduce the shear force.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.999-1028
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• 2015

Despite the fact that the fundamental period appears to be one of the most critical parameters for the seismic design of structures according to the modal superposition method, the so far available in the literature proposals for its estimation are often conflicting with each other making their use uncertain. Furthermore, the majority of these proposals do not take into account the presence of infills walls into the structure despite the fact that infill walls increase the stiffness and mass of structure leading to significant changes in the fundamental period numerical value. Toward this end, this paper presents a detailed and indepth analytical investigation on the parameters that affect the fundamental period of reinforce concrete structure. The calculated values of the fundamental period are compared against those obtained from the seismic code and equations proposed by various researchers in the literature. From the analysis of the results it has been found that the number of storeys, the span length, the stiffness of the infill wall panels, the location of the soft storeys and the soil type are crucial parameters that influence the fundamental period of RC buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.121-135
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• 2022

Many public buildings such as schools, hospitals, etc., where partial infill walls are present in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, have undergone undesirable damage/failure attributed to captive column effect during a moderate to severe earthquake shaking. Often, the situation gets worsened when these RC frames are non-ductile in nature, thus reducing the deformable capability of the frame. Also, in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, it is mandatory to use fly-ash bricks for construction so as to reduce the burden on the disposal of fly-ash produced at thermal power plants. In some scenario, when the non-ductile RC frame, partially infilled by fly-ash bricks, suffers major structural damage, the challenge remains on how to retrofit and restore it. Thus, in this study, two full-scale one-bay, one-story non-ductile RC frame models, namely, bare frame and RC partially infilled frame with fly-ash bricks in 50% of its opening area are considered. In the previous experiments, these models were subjected to slow-cyclic displacement-controlled loading to replicate damage due to a moderate earthquake. Now, in this study these damaged frames were retrofitted and an experimental investigation was performed on the retrofitted specimens to examine the effectiveness of the proposed retrofitting scheme. A hybrid retrofitting technique combining epoxy injection grouting with an innovative and easy-to-implement steel jacketing technique was proposed. This proposed retrofitting method has ensured proper confinement of damaged concrete. The retrofitted models were subjected to the same slow cyclic displacement-controlled loading which was used to damage the frames. The experimental study concluded that the hybrid retrofitting technique was quite effective in enhancing and regaining various seismic performance parameters such as, lateral strength and lateral stiffness of partially fly-ash brick infilled RC frame. Thus, the steel jacketing retrofitting scheme along with the epoxy injection grouting can be relied on for possible repair of the structural members which are damaged due to the captive column effect during the seismic shaking.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.499-520
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• 2011

The effectiveness of a technique for the repair of reinforced concrete members in combination with a technique for the repair of masonry walls of infilled frames, damaged due to cyclic loading, is experimentally investigated. Three single - story, one - bay, 1/3 - scale frame specimens are tested under cyclic horizontal loading, up to a drift level of 4%. One bare frame and two infilled frames with weak and strong infills, respectively, have been tasted. Specimens have spirals as shear reinforcement. The applied repair technique is mainly based on the use of thin epoxy resin infused under pressure into the crack system of the damaged RC joint bodies, the use of a polymer modified cement mortar with or without a fiberglass reinforcing mesh for the damaged infill masonry walls and the use of CFRP plates to the surfaces of the damaged structural RC members, as external reinforcement. Specimens after repair, were retested in the same way. Conclusions concerning the effectiveness of the applied repair technique, based on maximum cycles load, loading stiffness, and hysteretic energy absorption capabilities of the tested specimens, are drawn and commented upon.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.663-674
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• 2017

The determination of the fundamental period of vibration of a structure is essential to earthquake design. Current codes provide formulas for the approximate estimation of the fundamental period of earthquake-resistant building systems. These formulas are dependent only on the height of the structure or number of storeys without taking into account the presence of infill walls into the structure, despite the fact that infill walls increase the stiffness and mass of the structure leading to significant changes in the fundamental period. Furthermore, such a formulation is overly conservative and unable to account for structures with geometric irregularities. In this study, which comprises the companion paper of previous published research by the authors, the effect of the vertical geometric irregularities on the fundamental periods of masonry infilled structures has been investigated, through a large set of infilled frame structure cases. Based on these results, an attempt to quantify the reduction of the fundamental period due to the vertical geometric irregularities has been made through a proposal of properly reduction factor.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.257-279
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• 2015

The primary objective of this study is to summarize results from previous experimental tests on laboratory specimens of RC/steel frames with masonry infills, in order to develop fragility functions that permit the estimation of damage in typical non-structural components of RC frame buildings, as a function of attained peak interstory drift. The secondary objective is to derive loss functions for such non-structural components, which provide information on the probability of experiencing a certain level of monetary loss when a given damage state is attained. Fragility curves and loss function developed in this study can be directly used within the FEMA P-58 framework for the seismic performance assessment of RC frame buildings with masonry infills.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.571-588
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• 2013

Many of the current buildings in Algeria were built in the past without any consideration to the requirements of the seismic code. Among these buildings, there are a large number of individual houses built in the 1980's by their owners. They are Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame structures with unreinforced hollow masonry infill walls. This buildings type experienced major damage in the 2003 (Algeria) earthquake, generated by deficiencies in the structural system. In the present study, special attention is placed upon examining the vulnerability of RC frame houses. Their situation and their general features are investigated. Observing their seismic behavior, structural deficiencies are identified. The seismic vulnerability of this type of buildings depends on several factors, such as; structural system, plan and vertical configuration, materials and workmanship. The results of the vulnerability assessment of a group of RC frame houses are presented. Using a method based on the European Macroseismic Scale EMS-98 definitions, presented in previous studies, distribution of damage is obtained.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.137-149
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• 2014

In this study, modal parameters such as natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios of RC frames with low strength are determined for different construction stages using ambient vibration test. For this purpose full scaled, one bay and one story RC frames are produced and tested for plane, brick in-filled and brick in-filled with plaster conditions. Measurement time, frequency span and effective mode number are determined by considering similar studies and literature. To obtain experimental dynamic characteristics, Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition and Stochastic Subspace Identification techniques are used together. It is shown that the ambient vibration measurements are enough to identify the most significant modes of RC frames. The results indicate that modal parameters change significantly depending on the construction stages. In addition, Infill walls increase stiffness and change the mode shapes of the RC frame. There is a good agreement between mode shapes obtained from brick in-filled and in-filled with plaster conditions. However, some differences are seen in plane frame, like expected. Dynamic characteristics should be verified using finite element analysis. Finally, inconsistency between experimental and analytical dynamic characteristics should be minimize by finite element model updating using some uncertain parameters such as material properties, boundary condition and section properties to reflect the current behavior of the RC frames.