• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Reinforced concrete (RC) moment frames are used as lateral seismic load resisting systems in mid- and high-rise buildings in different regions of the world. Based on the seismic design provisions and construction details presented in design codes, RC frames with different levels of ductility (ordinary, intermediate, and special) can be designed and constructed. In Iran, there are RC buildings with various uses which have been constructed based on different editions of design codes. The seismic performance of RC structures (particularly moment frames) in real seismic events is of great importance. In this paper, the observations made on damaged RC moment frames after the destructive Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.3 are reported. Different levels of damage from the development of cracks in the structural and non-structural elements to the total collapse of buildings were observed. Furthermore, undesirable failure modes which are not expected in ductile seismic-resistant buildings were frequently observed in the damaged buildings. The RC moment frames built based on the previous editions of the design codes showed partial or total collapse in this seismic event. The extensive destruction of RC moment frames compared with the other structural systems (such as braced steel frames and confined masonry buildings) was attributed not only to the deficiencies in the construction practice of these buildings but also to the design procedure. In addition, the failure and collapse of masonry infills in RC moment frames were frequent modes of failure in this seismic event. In this paper, the main reasons related to design practice which led to extensive damage in the RC moment frames and their collapse are addressed.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.339-347
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• 2022

Retrofitting in reinforced concrete structures has been one of the most important research topics in recent years. There are several methods for retrofitting RC moment-resisting frames. the most important of which is the use of steel bracing systems with yielding dampers. With a proper design of yielding dampers, the stiffness of RC frame systems can be increased to the required extent so that the ductility of the structure is not significantly reduced. In the present study, two experimental samples of a one-third scale RC moment-resisting frame were loaded in the laboratory. In these experiments, the retrofitting effect of RC frames was investigated using Non-uniform Slit Dampers (NSDs). Based on the experimental results of the samples, seismic parameters, i.e., stiffness, ductility, ultimate strength, strength reduction coefficient, and energy dissipation capacity, were compared. The results demonstrated that the retrofitted frame had very significant growth in terms of stiffness, ultimate strength, and energy dissipation capacity. Although the strength reduction factor and ductility decreased in the retrofitted sample. In general, the behavior of the frame with NSDs was evaluated better than the bare frame.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.383-393
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• 2018

In this study, seismic performance of low and medium-rise RC buildings with wide-beam and ribbed-slab were evaluated numerically. Moment resisting systems consisting of moment and dual frame were selected as structural system of the buildings. Sufficiency of moment resisting wide-beam frames designed with high ductility requirements were evaluated. Upon necessity frames were stiffen with shear-walls. The buildings were designed in accordance with the Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC 2007) and were evaluated by using the strain-based nonlinear static method specified in TEC. Second order (P-delta) effects on the lateral load capacity of the buildings were also assessed in the study. The results indicated that the predicted seismic performances were achieved for the low-rise (4-story) building with the high ductility requirements. However, the moment resisting frame with high ductility was not adequate for the medium-rise building. Addition of sufficient amount of shear-walls to the system proved to be efficient way of providing the target performance of structure.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.355-362
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• 2009

Many of residential buildings, which have pilotis in lower stories to meet the architectural needs, are recently constructed in Korea. Usually, infill walls located in the upper stories of these buildings may cause a soft first story, which is very weak from the earthquake resistance. In the design of the buildings, the infill walls of upper stories are usually considered as non-structural elements and thus they are not included in the analytical model. However, the infill walls may affect the seismic behavior of the residential buildings. Therefore, the differences in seismic behaviors of RC buildings with and without masonry infill walls are required to be investigated. In this study, seismic fragility analyses were performed for masonry infilled low-rise RC moment-resisting frames. And seismic behaviors of RC moment-resisting frame with/without masonry infill walls were evaluated. Two types of structural system with the same frame and different allocation of infill walls are used to evaluate the influence of masonry infill walls on seismic behavior of RC moment-resisting frames. The infill walls were modeled as bi-equivalent diagonal struts. The fragility analyses show that the seismic performance of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story is below the desirable building seismic performance level recommended by current seismic codes, indicating high vulnerability of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.569-577
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• 2015

Recently, the concept of seismic design has changed from prescriptive to performance based design. For the performance based design with the specified target performance of the structure, it is necessary to execute the inelastic structural analysis to predict precisely the actual behavior of the structure. To address this issue, the seismic performance of the 5-story RC moment-resisting frames designed in accordance with KBC2009 is evaluated through push-over analysis and economic analysis is conducted focused on the direct construction costs. The results show that the ordinary and the intermediate moment-resisting frame are evaluated to meet the required performance design criteria and that the direct construction costs of the two frames are similar. However, although the special moment-resisting frame designed with strong column-weak girder philosophy satisfies the required performance design criteria, the direct construction cost is uneconomical compared with other frames. Therefore, although the intermediate moment-resisting frame of design category D is prohibited in IBC2012, the ordinary and the intermediate moment-resisting frame are estimated to be more reasonable than the special moment-resisting frame for the design of 5-story RC moment-resisting frame.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.5
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• pp.609-619
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• 2018

When the irregularities occurred in buildings, affect their seismic performance. This paper has focused on one of the types of irregularities at the height that named setback in elevation. For this purpose, several multistorey Reinforced Concrete Moment Resisting Frames (RCMRFs) with different types of setbacks were designed according to new edition of Iranian seismic code. The nonlinear time history analysis was performed to predict the seismic performance of frames subjected to seven input ground motions. The assessment of the seismic performance was done considering both global and local criteria. Results showed that the current edition of Iranian seismic code needs to be modified in order to improve the seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete moment resisting setback buildings. It was also shown that the maximum damages happen at the elements located in the vicinity of the setbacks. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen these elements by appropriate modification of Iranian seismic code.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.99-112
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• 2023

This paper investigates the influences of Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) on the seismic behavior of two-dimensional reinforced concrete moment-resisting frames subjected to Far-Field Ground Motion (FFGM) and Near-Field Ground Motion (NFGM). For this purpose, the nonlinear modeling of 7, 10, and 15-story reinforced concrete moment resisting frames were developed in Open Systems for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees) software. Effects of SSI were studied by simulating Beam on Nonlinear Winkler Foundation (BNWF) and the soil type as homogenous medium-dense. Generally, the building resistance to seismic loads can be explained in terms of Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA); therefore, IDA curves are presented in this study. For comparison, the fragility evaluation is subjected to NFGM and FFGM as proposed by Quantification of Building Seismic Performance Factors (FEMA P-695). The seismic performance of Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings with fixed and flexible foundations was evaluated to assess the probability of collapse. The results of this paper demonstrate that SSI and NFGM have significantly influenced the probability of failure of the RC frames. In particular, the flexible-base RC buildings experience higher Spectral acceleration (Sa) compared to the fixed-base ones subjected to FFGM and NFGM.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.6
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• pp.647-660
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• 2018

The Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) procedure is currently known as a robust tool for estimation of seismic collapse capacity. However, the procedure is time-consuming and requires significant computational efforts. Recently some simplified methods have been developed for rapid estimation of seismic collapse capacity using pushover analysis. However, a comparative review and assessment of these methods is necessary to point out their relative advantages and shortcomings, and to pave the way for their practical use. In this paper, four simplified pushover analysis-based methods are selected and applied on four regular RC intermediate moment-resisting frames with 3, 6, 9 and 12 stories. The accuracy and performance of the different simplified methods in estimating the median seismic collapse capacity are evaluated through comparisons with the results obtained from IDAs. The results show that reliable estimations of the summarized 50% fractile IDA curve are produced using SPO2IDA and MPA-based IDA methods; however, the accuracy of the results for 16% and 84% fractiles is relatively low. The method proposed by Shafei et al. appears to be the most simple and straightforward method which gives rise to good estimates of the median sidesway collapse capacity with minimum computational efforts.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1055-1071
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• 2016

The paper presents an innovative steel moment frame with the replaceable reinforced concrete wall panel (SRW) structural system, in which the replaceable concrete wall can play a role to increase the overall lateral stiffness of the frame system. Two full scale specimens composed of the steel frames and the replaceable reinforced concrete wall panels were tested under the cyclic horizontal load. The failure mode, load-displacement response, deformability, and the energy dissipation capacity of SRW specimens were investigated. Test results show that the two-stage failure mode is characterized by the sequential failure process of the replaceable RC wall panel and the steel moment frame. It can be found that the replaceable RC wall panels damage at the lateral drift ratio greater than 0.5%. After the replacement of a new RC wall panel, the new specimen maintained the similar capacity of resisting lateral load as the previous one. The decrease of the bearing capacity was presented between the two stages because of the connection failure on the top of the replaceable RC wall panel. With the increase of the lateral drift, the percentage of the lateral force and the overturning moment resisted by the wall panel decreased for the reason of the reduction of its lateral stiffness. After the failure of the wall panel, the steel moment frame shared almost all the lateral force and the overturning moment.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.5 s.45
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• pp.11-19
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• 2005

Seismic design of a building is usually performed by using the linear static procedure. However, the actual behavior of the building subjected to earthquake is inelastic and dynamic in nature. Therefore, inelastic dynamic analysis is required to evaluate the safety of the structure designed by the current design codes. For the validation, a RC special moment resisting frame building was chosen and designed by IBC 2003 representing new codes. Maximum plastic rotation and dissipated energy of some selected members were calculated for examining if the inelastic behavior of the building follows the intention of the code, and drift demand were calculated as well for checking if the building well satisfies the design drift limit. In addition, the effect of including internal moment resisting frames (non lateral resisting system) on analyses results was investigated. As a result of this study, the building designed by IBC 2003 showed the inelastic behavior intended in the code and satisfied the design drift limit. Furthermore, the internal moment resisting frames should be included in the analytical model as they affect the results of seismic analyses significantly.