• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제13권6호
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• pp.501-519
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• 2012

As an alternative to current conventional force-based assessment methods, the energy-based seismic performance of a code-designed 20-storey high-rise steel building is evaluated in this paper. Using 3D nonlinear dynamic time-history method with consideration of additional material damping effect, the influences of different restoring force models and P-${\Delta}/{\delta}$ effects on energy components are investigated. By combining equivalent viscous damping and hysteretic damping ratios of the structure subjected to strong ground motions, a new damping model, which is amplitude-dependent, is discussed in detail. According to the analytical results, all energy components are affected to various extents by P-${\Delta}/{\delta}$ effects and a difference of less than 10% is observed; the energy values of the structure without consideration of P-${\Delta}/{\delta}$ effects are larger, while the restoring force models have a minor effect on seismic input energy with a difference of less than 5%, but they have a certain effect on both viscous damping energy and hysteretic energy with a difference of about 5~15%. The paper shows that the use of the hysteretic energy at its ultimate state as a seismic design parameter has more advantages than seismic input energy since it presents a more stable value. The total damping ratio of a structure consists of viscous damping ratio and hysteretic damping ratio and it is found that the equivalent viscous damping ratio is a constant for the structure, while the equivalent hysteretic damping ratio approximately increases linearly with structural response in elasto-plastic stage.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.151-164
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• 2017

This article aims to investigate the possible retrofitting of a deficient building with soft story failure mode by connecting it to an adjacent building which is designed based on current code with friction dampers at all floors. Low cost and high performance reliability along with significant energy dissipation pertaining to stable hysteretic loops may be considered in order to choose the proper damper for connecting adjacent buildings. After connecting two neighbouring floors by friction dampers, the sliding forces of dampers at various stories are set in two arrangements: uniform sliding force and then variable sliding force. In order to account for the stochastic nature of the seismic events, incremental dynamic analyses are employed prior and after the installation of the friction dampers at the various floors. Based on these results, fragility curves and mean annual rate of exceedance of serviceability and ultimate limit states are obtained. The results of this study show that the collapse mode of the deficient building can affect the optimum arrangement of sliding forces of friction dampers at Collapse Prevention (CP) performance level. In particular, the Immediate Occupancy (IO) performance level is not tangible to the sliding force arrangement and it depends solely on sliding force value. Generally it can be claimed that this rehabilitation scheme can turn the challenge of pounding two adjacent buildings into the opportunity of dissipating a large amount of the seismic input energy by the friction dampers, thus improving significantly the poor seismic performance of the deficient structure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제47권2호
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• pp.147-165
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• 2023

The paper contrasts conventional seismic design with a design that incorporates buckling-restrained bracing in three-dimensional reinforced concrete buildings (BRBs). The suboptimal structures may be found using the multi-objective chimp optimization algorithm (MEN-ChOA). Given the constraints and dimensions, ChOA suffers from a slow convergence rate and tends to become stuck in local minima. Therefore, the ChOA is improved by niching and evolutionary operators to overcome the aforementioned problems. In addition, a new technique is presented to compute seismic and dead loads that include all of a structure's parts in an algorithm for three-dimensional frame design rather than only using structural elements. The performance of the constructed multi-objective model is evaluated using 12 standard multi-objective benchmarks proposed in IEEE congress on evolutionary computation. Second, MEN-ChOA is employed in constructing several reinforced concrete structures by the Mexico City building code. The variety of Pareto optimum fronts of these criteria enables a thorough performance examination of the MEN-ChOA. The results also reveal that BRB frames with comparable structural performance to conventional moment-resistant reinforced concrete framed buildings are more cost-effective when reinforced concrete building height rises. Structural performance and building cost may improve by using a nature-inspired strategy based on MEN-ChOA in structural design work.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.1-12
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• 2016

The 1100 foot [335 m] tall Wilshire Grand Center tower under construction in Los Angeles illustrates many key outrigger issues. The tower has a long, narrow floor plan and slender central core. Outrigger braces at three groups of levels in the tower help provide for occupant comfort during windy conditions as well as safety during earthquakes. Because outrigger systems are outside the scope of prescriptive code provisions, Performance Based Design (PBD) using Nonlinear Response History Analysis (NRHA) demonstrated acceptability to the Los Angeles building department and its peer review panel. Buckling Restrained Brace (BRB) diagonals are used at all outrigger levels to provide stable cyclic nonlinear behavior and to limit forces generated at columns, connections and core walls. Each diagonal at the lowest set of outriggers includes four individual BRBs to provide exceptional capacities. The middle outriggers have an unusual 'X-braced Vierendeel' configuration to provide clear hotel corridors. The top outriggers are pre-loaded by jacks to address long-term differential shortening between the concrete core and concrete-filled steel perimeter box columns. The outrigger connection details are complex in order to handle large forces and deformations, but were developed with contractor input to enable practical construction.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제14권6호
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• pp.599-614
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• 2018

This study focuses on the earthquake performance of two URM buildings having typical architectural configurations common for residential use constructed per pre-modern code in Albania. Both buildings are unreinforced clay brick masonry structures constructed in 1960 and 1984, respectively. The first building is a three-storey unreinforced one with masonry walls. The second one is confined masonry rising on five floors. Mechanical characteristics of masonry walls were determined based on experimental tests conducted according to ASTM C67-09 regulations. A global numerical model of the buildings was built, and masonry material was simulated as nonlinear. Pushover analyses are carried out to obtain capacity curves. Displacement demands were calculated according to Eurocode 8 and FEMA440 guidelines. Causes of building failures in recent earthquakes were examined using the results of this study. The results of the study showed that the URM building displays higher displacement and shear force demands that can be directly related to damage or collapse. On the other hand, the confined one exhibits relatively higher seismic resistance by indicating moderate damage. Moreover, effects of demand estimation approaches on performance assessment of URM buildings were compared. Deficiencies and possible solutions to improve the capacity of such buildings were discussed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.293-311
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• 2016

A parametric study on the nonlinear seismic response of isolated reinforced concrete structural frame is presented. Three prototype frames designed according to the 1954 Hellenic seismic code, with number of floor ranging from 1 to 3 were considered. These low rise frames are representative of many existing reinforced concrete buildings in Greece. The efficacy of the implementation of both lead rubber bearings (LRB) and friction pendulum isolators (FPI) base isolation systems were examined. The selection of the isolation devices was made according to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$, where Tis is the period of the base isolation system and $T_{bf}$ is the period of the fixed-base building. The main purpose of this comprehensive study is to investigate the effect of the isolation system period on the seismic response of inadequately designed low rise buildings. Thus, the implementation of isolation systems which correspond to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$ that values from 3 to 5 is studied. Nonlinear time history analyses were performed to investigate the response of the isolated structures using a set of three natural seismic ground motions. The evaluation of each retrofitting case was made in terms of storey drift and storey shear force while in view of serviceability it was made in terms of storey acceleration. Finally, the maximum developed displacements and the residual displacements of the isolation systems are presented.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.295-304
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• 2019

The lateral displacement or drift may be the cause of the damage in the reinforced concrete (RC) columns under the seismic load. In many regulations, lateral displacement was limited according to the properties of columns. The design displacement limits may be represented indirectly through the material strain limits and the mechanical properties of columns. EUROCODE-8 and FEMA356 calculate displacement limits by taking into account the mechanical properties of columns. However, Turkey Building Earthquake Code (TBEC) determine displacement limits by taking into account the material strain limits. The aim of this study is to assess the seismic design codes for RC columns through an experimental study. The estimates of seismic design codes have been compared with the experimental results. It is observed that the lateral displacement capacities of columns estimated according to some seismic codes are not in agreement with the experimental results. Also, it is observed that TBEC is conservative in the context of the performance indicator of RC columns, compared to EUROCODE-8 and FEMA356. Moreover, in this study, plastic hinge length and effective stiffness of test elements were investigated.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.79-87
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• 2017

Seismic analysis of local site conditions is fundamental for a reliable site seismic hazard assessment. It plays a major role in mitigation of seismic damage potential through the prediction of surface ground motion in terms of amplitude, frequency content and duration. Such analysis requires the determination of the transfer function, which is a simple tool for characterizing a soil profile by estimating its vibration frequencies and its amplification potential. In this study, numerical simulations are carried out and are then combined with a statistical study to allow the characterization of design sites classified by the Algerian Building Seismic Code (RPA99, ver 2003), by average transfer functions. The mean transfer functions are thereafter used to compute RPA99 average site factors. In this regard, coming up seismic fields are simulated based on Power Spectral Density Functions (PSDF) defined at the rock basement. Results are also used to compute average site factor where, actual and synthetic time histories are introduced. In absence of measurement data, it is found that the proposed approach can be used for a better soil characterization.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.349-357
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• 2017

The design of reinforced concrete structures strongly depends on the value of the compression concrete strength used for the structural components. Given the uncertainties involved on the materials quality provided by concrete manufacturers, in the construction stage, these components may be either over or under-reinforced respect to the nominal condition. If the structure is under reinforced, and the deficit on safety level is not as large to require the structure demolition, someone should assume the consequences, and pay for the under standard condition by means of a penalty. If the structure is over reinforced, and other failure modes are not induced, the builder may receive a bonus, as a consequence of the higher, although unrequested, building resistance. The change on the building safety level is even more critical when the structure is under a seismic environment. In this research, a reliability-based criteria, including the consideration of expected losses, is proposed for bonification/penalization, when there are moderated differences between the supplied and specified reinforced concrete strength for the buildings. The formulation is applied to two hypothetical, with regular structural type, 3 and 10 levels reinforced concrete buildings, located on the soft soil zone of Mexico City. They were designed under the current Mexican code regulations, and their responses for typical spectral pseudoaccelerations, combined with their respective occurrence probabilities, are used to calculate the building failure probability. The results are aimed at providing objective basis to start a negotiation towards a satisfactory agreement between the involved parts. The main contribution resides on the explicit consideration of potential losses, including the building and contents losses and the business interruption due to the reconstruction period.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.423-442
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• 2015

The effects of accidental eccentricity on the seismic response of four-storey steel buildings laterally stabilized by buckling restrained braced frames are studied. The structures have a square, symmetrical footprint, without inherent eccentricity between the center of lateral resistance (CR) and the center of mass (CM). The position of the bracing bents in the buildings was varied to obtain three different levels of torsional sensitivity: low, intermediate and high. The structures were designed in accordance with the seismic design provisions of the 2010 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). Three different analysis methods were used to account for accidental eccentricity in design: (1) Equivalent Static Procedure with static in-plane torsional moments assuming a mass eccentricity of 10% of the building dimension (ESP); (2) Response Spectrum Analysis with static torsional moments based on 10% of the building dimension (RSA-10); and (3) Response Spectrum Analysis with the CM being displaced by 5% of the building dimension (RSA-5). Time history analyses were performed under a set of eleven two-component historical records. The analyses showed that the ESP and RSA-10 methods can give appropriate results for all three levels of torsional sensitivity. When using the RSA-5 method, adequate performance was also achieved for the low and intermediate torsional sensitivity cases, but the method led to excessive displacements (5-10% storey drifts), near collapse state, for the highly torsionally sensitive structures. These results support the current provisions of NBCC 2010.