• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.417-427
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• 2023

If the center of mass and center of stiffness or strength of a structure plan do not coincide, the structure is considered asymmetric. During an earthquake, in addition to lateral vibration, the structure experiences torsional vibration as well. Lateraltorsional coupling in asymmetric structures in the plan will increase lateral displacement at the ends of the structure plan and, as a result, uneven deformation demand in seismically resistant frames. The demand for displacement in resistant frames depends on the magnitude of transitional displacement to rotational displacement in the plan and the correlation between these two. With regard to the inability to eliminate the asymmetrical condition due to various reasons, such as architectural issues, this study has attempted to use supplemental viscous dampers to decrease the correlation between lateral and torsional acceleration or displacement in the plan. This results in an almost even demand for lateral deformation and acceleration of seismic resistant frames. On this basis, using the concept of Torsional Balance, adequate distribution of viscous dampers for the decrease of this correlation was determined by transferring the "Empirical Center of Balance" (ECB) to the geometrical center of the structure plan and thus obtaining an equal mean square value of displacement and acceleration of the plan edges. This study analyzed stiff and flexible torsional structures with one-way and two-way mass asymmetry in the Opensees software. By implementing the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, the optimum formation of dampers for controlling lateral displacement and acceleration is determined. The results indicate that with the appropriate distribution of viscous dampers, not only does the lateral displacement and acceleration of structure edges decrease but the lateral displacement or acceleration of the structure edges also become equal. It is also observed that the optimized center of viscous dampers for control of displacement and acceleration of structure depends on the amount of mass eccentricity, the ratio of uncoupled torsional-to-lateral frequency, and the amount of supplemental damping ratio. Accordingly, distributions of viscous dampers in the structure plan are presented to control the structure's torsion based on the parameters mentioned.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.457-465
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• 2013

We integrated and correlated datasets from surface and subsurface geophysics, drilling cores, and engineering geology to identify geological interfaces and characterize the joints and fracture zones within the rock mass. The regional geometry of a geologically weak zone was investigated via a fence projection of electrical resistivity data and a borehole image-processing system. Subsurface discontinuities and intensive fracture zones within the rock mass are delineated by cross-hole seismic tomography and analyses of dip directions in rose diagrams. The dynamic elastic modulus is studied in terms of the P-wave velocity and Poisson's ratio. Subsurface discontinuities, which are conventionally identified using the N value and from core samples, can now be identified from anomalous reflection coefficients (i.e., acoustic impedance contrast) calculated using a pair of well logs, comprising seismic velocity from suspension-PS logging and density from logging. Intensive fracture zones identified in the synthetic seismogram are matched to core loss zones in the drilling core data and to a high concentration of joints in the borehole imaging system. The upper boundaries of fracture zones are correlated to strongly negative amplitude in the synthetic trace, which is constructed by convolution of the optimal Ricker wavelet with a reflection coefficient. The standard deviations of dynamic elastic moduli are higher for fracture zones than for acompact rock mass, due to the wide range of velocities resulting from the large numbers of joints and fractures within the zone.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.3
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• pp.281-292
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• 2017

Architecture constraints in buildings may typically cause irregularities in the distribution of stiffness and mass and consequently causes non-compliance of centers of mass, stiffness and strength. Such buildings are known as asymmetric buildings the distribution of strength and stiffness is one of whose main challenges. This distribution is more complicated for concrete buildings with RC shear walls in which stiffness and strength are interdependent parameters. The flexibility under the foundation is another subject that can affect this distribution due to the variation of dynamic properties of the structure and its constituting elements. In this paper, it is attempted to achieve an appropriate distribution pattern by expressing the effects of foundation flexibility on the seismic demand of concrete shear walls and also evaluate the effects of this issue on strength and stiffness distribution among lateral force resistant elements. In order to understand the importance of flexibility in strength and stiffness distribution for an asymmetric building in different conditions of under-foundation flexibility, the assigned value to each of the walls is numerically calculated and eventually a procedure for strength and stiffness distribution dependencies on flexibility is provided.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.893-910
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• 2015

Earthquake safety of existing buildings has gained considerable importance after earthquakes which have occurred in our country especially in the last 30 years. Performance based assessment methods have been widely used for existing reinforced concrete structures. This study aims to investigate the earthquake performances of the building stock located in Van Lake basin in Eastern Anatolia of Turkey. The case study of buildings has been modeled on and the structural performances have been determined by employing the non-linear methods described in the latest Turkish Earthquake Code published in 2007. The Van lake basin is located on the very seismically active in a region. On October 23, 2011, a magnitude of Mw 7.2 earthquake struck the Van province in eastern Turkey. The earthquake ground motion was recorded as about 0.1g in Bitlis province. Performance evaluations have been performed by taking samples from each district consisting urban building stocks of Bitlis. A total of 16 reinforced concrete buildings have been evaluated. Among them, 53% of those buildings were determined in the Fully Operational performance level; 13% of them in the Life Safety performance and 34% of them could not be evaluated because of the ratio of the effective mass of first mode to the total mass of the buildings was smaller than 0.70. Therefore, incremental equivalent seismic load methods, which are a part of Turkish Earthquake Code -2007, cannot be used.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.555-564
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• 2018

Allowing structures to uplift in earthquakes can significantly reduce or even avoid the development of plastic hinges within the structure. The permanent deformations in the structure can thus be minimized. However, uplift of footings can cause additional horizontal movements of a structure. With an increase in movement relative to adjacent structures, the probability of pounding between structures increases. This experimental study reveals that the footing mass can be used to control the vertical displacement of footing and thus reduce the horizontal displacements of an upliftable structure. A four storey model structure with plastic hinges and uplift capability was considered. Shake table tests using ten different earthquake records were conducted. Three different footing masses were considered. It is found that the amplitude of footing uplift can be greatly reduced by increasing the mass of the footing. As a result, allowing structural uplift does not necessary increase the horizontal displacement of the structure. The results show that with increasing footing weight, the interaction between structural and footing response can increase the contribution of the higher modes to the structural response. Consequently, the induced vibrations on secondary structure increase.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.177-193
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• 2003

This paper presents an illustrative example of the advantages offered by inserting added viscous dampers into shear-type structures in accordance with a special scheme based upon the mass proportional damping (MPD) component of the Rayleigh viscous damping matrix. In previous works developed by the authors, it has been widely shown that, within the class of Rayleigh damped systems and under the "equal total cost" constraint, the MPD system provides best overall performance both in terms of minimising top-storey mean square response to a white noise stochastic input and maximising the weighted average of modal damping ratios. A numerical verification of the advantages offered by the application of MPD systems to a realistic structure is presented herein with reference to a 4-storey reinforced-concrete frame. The dynamic response of the frame subjected to both stochastic inputs and several recorded earthquake ground motions is here analysed in detail. The results confirm the good dissipative properties of MPD systems and indicate that this is achieved at the expense of relatively small damping forces.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

The vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) analysis might be cumbersome and computationally expensive in bridge engineering due to the necessity of solving large number of coupled system of equations. However, VBI analysis can provide valuable insights into the dynamic behavior of highway bridges under specific loading conditions. Hence, this paper presents a numerical study on the dynamic behavior of a conventional highway bridge under strong near-field and far-field earthquake motions considering the VBI effects. A recursive substructuring method, which enables solving bridge and vehicle equations of motion separately and suitable to be adapted to general purpose finite element softwares, was used. A thorough analysis that provides valuable information about the effect of various traffic conditions, vehicle velocity, road roughness and effect of soil conditions under far-field and near-field strong earthquake motions has been presented. A real-life concrete highway bridge was chosen for numerical demonstrations. In addition, sprung mass models of vehicles consist of conventional truck and car models were created using physical and dynamic properties adopted from literature. Various scenarios, of which the results may help to highlight the different aspects of the dynamic response of concrete highway bridges under strong earthquakes, have been considered.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.105-112
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• 2015

A shared tuned mass damper (STMD) was proposed in previous research for reduction of dynamic responses of the adjacent buildings subjected to earthquake loads. A single STMD can provide similar control performance in comparison with two traditional TMDs. In previous research, a passive damper was used to connect the STMD with adjacent buildings. In this study, a smart magnetorheological (MR) damper was used instead of a passive damper to compose an adaptive smart STMD (ASTMD). Control performance of the ASTMD was investigated by numerical analyses. For this purpose, two 8-story buildings were used as example structures. Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was used to control the command voltages sent to two MR dampers. The MIMO FLC was optimized by a multi-objective genetic algorithm. Numerical analyses showed that the ASTMD can effectively control dynamic responses of adjacent buildings subjected to earthquake excitations in comparison with a passive STMD.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.261-276
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• 2013

Oil, hysteretic and inertial mass dampers are representatives of passive dampers used for smart enhancement of seismic performance of building structures. Since oil dampers have a nonlinear relief mechanism and hysteretic dampers possess nonlinear restoring-force characteristics, several difficulties arise in the evaluation of buildings including such dampers. The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical method for simultaneous optimal use of such dampers. The optimum design problem is formulated so as to minimize the maximum interstory drift under design earthquakes in terms of a set of damper quantities subject to an equality constraint on the total cost of dampers. The proposed method to solve the optimum design problem is a successive procedure which consists of two steps. The first step is a sensitivity analysis by using nonlinear time-history response analyses, and the second step is a modification of the set of damper quantities based upon the sensitivity analysis. Numerical examples are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the proposed design method.

• Journal of KIBIM
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.8-18
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• 2019

Precast concrete manufacturing has proved economies of scale through the repetitive production by means of standardization, automation, and prefabrication. Advanced digital design and fabrication technologies can empower its benefits by enabling mass customization in the building design and construction. This study analyzed five case studies in terms of 1) design intent and background, 2) module development and facade construction, 3) integrated process among project stakeholder. This article has attempted to establish the following three points in conclusion: 1) Form generating digital design tools such as Rhino, CATIA, Generative Component, and Digital Project were implemented to produce parametric surface pattern and rationalization to maximize existing precast manufacturing benefits. Also, BIM program has been used to promote coordination and communication among engineering consultants and contractors, 2) In addition to traditional precast concrete materials, GFRC, RFP, brick cladding precast and 3D printed mould have been introduced to reduce the weight and cost and to comply the code from the zoning, seismic, and fireproof requirements, 3) Design-assist contract, design-assist financial support, and co-location measures have been introduced to facilitate collaboration between architect, fabricator, and contractor from the beginning of the project.