• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.233-244
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• 2019

In this work, we have studied the effects of different soil thicknesses, haunch heights, reinforcement forms and construction technologies on the seismic performance of a composite precast fabricated utility tunnel by pseudo-static tests. Five concrete specimens were designed and fabricated for low-cycle reciprocating load tests. The hysteretic behavior of composite precast fabricated utility tunnel under simulated seismic waves and the strain law of steel bars were analyzed. Test results showed that composite precast fabricated utility tunnel met the requirements of current codes and had good anti-seismic performance. The use of a closed integral arrangement of steel bars inside utility tunnel structure as well as diagonal reinforcement bars at its haunches improved the integrity of the whole structure and increased the bearing capacity of the structure by about 1.5%. Increasing the thickness of covering soil within a certain range was beneficial to the earthquake resistance of the structure, and the energy consumption was increased by 10%. Increasing haunch height within a certain range increased the bearing capacity of the structure by up to about 19% and energy consumption by up to 30%. The specimen with the lowest haunch height showed strong structural deformation with ductility coefficient of 4.93. It was found that the interfaces of haunches, post-casting self-compacting concrete, and prefabricated parts were the weak points of utility tunnel structures. Combining the failure phenomena of test structures with their related codes, we proposed improvement measures for construction technology, which could provide a reference for the construction and design of practical projects.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.209-219
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• 2022

Offshore platforms in seismically active areas must be designed to survive in the face of intense earthquakes without a global structural collapse. This paper scrutinizes the seismic performance of a newly designed and established jacket type offshore platform situated in the entrance of the Gulf of Suez region based on the API-RP2A normalized response spectra during seismic events. A nonlinear finite element model of a typical jacket type offshore platform is constructed taking into consideration the effect of structure-soil-interaction. Soil properties at the site were manipulated to generate the pile lateral soil properties in the form of load deflection curves, based on API-RP2A recommendations. Dynamic characteristics of the offshore platform, the response function, output power spectral density and transfer functions for different elements of the platform are discussed. The joints deflection and acceleration responses demands are presented. It is generally concluded that consideration of the interaction between structure, piles and soil leads to higher deflections and less stresses in platform elements due to soil elasticity, nonlinearity, and damping and leads to a more realistic platform design. The earthquake-based analysis for offshore platform structure is essential for the safe design and operation of offshore platforms.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2022

The direct shear test is commonly used to evaluate the shear behavior of frozen soil-structure interfaces under normal stress. However, failure criteria, such as the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, are needed to obtain the unconfined shear strength. Hence, the punch shear test, which is usually used to estimate the shear strength of rocks without confinement, was examined in this study to directly determine the adfreezing strength. It is measured as the shear strength of the frozen soil-structure interface under unconfined conditions. Different soils of silica sand, field sand, and field clay were prepared inside the steel and concrete ring structures. Soil and ring structures were frozen at the target temperature for more than 24 h. A punch shear test was then conducted. The test results show that the adfreezing strength increased with a decrease in the target temperature and increase in the initial water content, owing to the increase in ice content. The adfreezing strength of field clay was the smallest when compared with the other soil specimens because of the large amount of unfrozen water content. The field sand with the larger normalized roughness showed greater adfreezing strength than the silica sand with a lower normalized roughness. From the experiment and analysis, the applicability of the punch shear test was examined to measure the adfreezing strength of the frozen soil-structure interface. To find a proper sample dimension, supplementary experiments or numerical analysis will be needed in further research.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.13-24
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• 2020

A systematic approach to assess the safety of corrugated steel plate structures has not been established yet. Therefore, an improved safety assessment procedure was proposed in this study by considering the characteristics of corrugated steel plate structures in which the dead load of backfill soil is dominant and the live load effect is minimized. The proposed procedure can consider the combined effect of axial force and bending moment on the safety, based on the Soil-Culvert Interaction (SCI) method, and can differentiate the maintenance scheme according to the calculated plasticity index. There is also an advantage in enhancing the accuracy of assessment, utilizing the measured displacements. Furthermore, improved methods were proposed by discussing various ways for reasonably improving the proposed assessment procedure. The safety of an actual structure and a full-scale test specimen was assessed by applying the proposed procedure. The conventional assessment procedure significantly overestimated the load-carrying capacity, whereas the proposed procedure resulted in a reasonable level of safety. Therefore, the procedure proposed in this study is expected to contribute to the establishment of proper maintenance plan such as the quantitative condition assessment and strengthening of corrugated steel plate structure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.761-773
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• 2021

This study presents a 3D non-linear finite element (FE) assessment of dynamic soil-structure interaction (SSI). The numerical investigation has been performed on the time domain through a Finite Element (FE) system, while considering the nonlinear behavior of soil and the multi-directional nature of genuine seismic events. Later, the FE outcomes are analyzed to the recorded in-situ free-field and structural movements, emphasizing the numerical model's great result in duplicating the observed response. In this work, the soil response is simulated using an isotropic hardening elastic-plastic hysteretic model utilizing HSsmall. It is feasible to define the non-linear cycle response from small to large strain amplitudes through this model as well as for the shift in beginning stiffness with depth that happens during cyclic loading. One of the most difficult and unexpected tasks in resolving soil-structure interaction concerns is picking an appropriate ground motion predicted across an earthquake or assessing the geometrical abnormalities in the soil waves. Furthermore, an artificial neural network (ANN) has been utilized to properly forecast the non-linear behavior of soil and its multi-directional character, which demonstrated the accuracy of the ANN based on the RMSE and R² values. The total result of this research demonstrates that complicated dynamic soil-structure interaction processes may be addressed directly by passing the significant simplifications of well-established substructure techniques.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.99-115
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• 2020

This article deals with the dynamic analysis in pad concrete foundation containing Silica nanoparticles (SiO₂) subject to seismic load. In order to control the foundation smartly, a piezoelectric layer covered the foundation. The weight of the building by a column on the foundation is assumed with an external force in the middle of the structure. The foundation is located in soil medium which is modeled by spring elements. The Mori-Tanaka law is utilized for calculating the equivalent mechanical characteristics of the concrete foundation. The Kevin-Voigt model is adopted to take into account the structural damping. The concrete structure is modeled by a thick plate and the governing equations are deduced using Hamilton's principle under the assumption of higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The differential quadrature method (DQM) and the Newmark method are applied to obtain the seismic response. The effects of the applied voltage to the smart layer, agglomeration and volume percent of SiO₂ nanoparticles, damping of the structure, geometrical parameters and soil medium of the structure are assessed on the dynamic response. It has been demonstrated by the numerical results that by applying a negative voltage, the dynamic deflection is reduced significantly. Moreover, silica nanoparticles reduce the dynamic deflection of the concrete foundation.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.479-491
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• 2006

Structures in seismic regions are designed to dissipate seismic energy input through inelastic deformations. Structural or component failure occurs when the hysteretic energy demand for a structure or component subject to an earthquake ground motion (EQGM) exceeds its hysteretic energy dissipation capacity. This paper presents a study on identifying the hysteretic energy demand and distribution throughout the height of regular steel moment resisting frames (SMRFs) subject to severe EQGMs. For this purpose, non-linear dynamic time history (NDTH) analyses were carried out on regular low-, medium-, and high-rise steel SMRFs. An ensemble of ninety EQGMs recorded on different soil types was used in the study. The results show that the hysteretic energy demand decreases from the bottom stories to the upper stories and for high-rise structures, most of the hysteretic energy is dissipated by the bottom stories. The decrease is quite significant, especially, for medium- and high-rise structures.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.33-40
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• 2018

Characteristics of interface friction between cohesionless soils and geotechnical structure surfaces play an important role in the analysis of earth load and resistance on the structure. In general, geotechnical structures are mainly composed of either steel or concrete, and their surface roughnesses with respect to soil particle sizes influence the interface characteristics between soils and the structures. Accurate assessment of the interface friction characteristics between soils and structures is important to ensure the safety of geotechnical structures, such as mechanically stabilized earth walls reinforced with inextensible reinforcements, piles embedded into soils, retaining wall backfilled with soils. In this study, based on the database of high quality interface friction tests between frictional soils and solid surfaces from literature, equation representing peak interface friction angle is proposed. The influential factors of the peak interface friction angle are relative roughness between soil and solid surface, relative density of frictional soil, and residual (constant volume) interface friction angle. Futhermore, for the developed equation of the interface friction angle, its uncertainty was assessed statistically based on Goodness-of-fit test results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.637-655
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• 2012

In this study, stochastic responses of a cable-stayed bridge subjected to the spatially varying earthquake ground motion are investigated by the finite element method taking into account soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects. The considered bridge in the analysis is Quincy Bay-view Bridge built on the Mississippi River in between 1983-1987 in Illinois, USA. The bridge is composed of two H-shaped concrete towers, double plane fan type cables and a composite concrete-steel girder deck. In order to determine the stochastic response of the bridge, a two-dimensional lumped masses model is considered. Incoherence, wave-passage and site response effects are taken into account for the spatially varying earthquake ground motion. Depending on variation in the earthquake motion, the response values of the cable-stayed bridge supported on firm, medium and soft foundation soil are obtained, separately. The effects of SSI on the stochastic response of the cable-stayed bridge are also investigated including foundation as a rigidly capped vertical pile groups. In this approach, piles closely grouped together beneath the towers are viewed as a single equivalent upright beam. The soil-pile interaction is linearly idealized as an upright beam on Winkler foundation model which is commonly used to study the response of single piles. A sufficient number of springs on the beam should be used along the length of the piles. The springs near the surface are usually the most important to characterize the response of the piles surrounded by the soil; thus a closer spacing may be used in that region. However, in generally springs are evenly spaced at about half the diameter of the pile. The results of the stochastic analysis with and without the SSI are compared each other while the bridge is under the sway of the spatially varying earthquake ground motion. Specifically, in case of rigid towers and soft soil condition, it is pointed out that the SSI should be significantly taken into account for the design of such bridges.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.169-186
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• 2013

The aim of this paper is to determine the effect of soil-structure interaction and time dependent material properties on behavior of concrete box-girder highway bridges. Two different finite element analyses, one stage and construction stage, have been carried out on Komurhan Bridge between Elazi$\breve{g}$ and Malatya province of Turkey, over Fırat River. The one stage analysis assume that structure was built in a second and material properties of structure not change under different loads and site conditions during time. However, construction stage analysis considers that construction time and time dependent material properties. The main and side spans of bridge are 135 m and 76 m, respectively. The bridge had been constructed in 3 years between 1983 and 1986 by balanced cantilever construction method. The parameters of soil-structure interaction (SSI), time dependent material properties and construction method are taken into consideration in the construction stage analysis while SSI is single parameter taking into consideration in the one stage analysis. The 3D finite element model of bridge is created the commercial program of SAP2000. Time dependent material properties are elasticity modulus, creep and shrinkage for concrete and relaxation for steel. Soft, medium, and firm soils are selected for evaluating SSI in both analyses. The results of two different finite element analyses are compared with each other. It is seen that both construction stage and SSI have a remarkable effect on the structural behavior of the bridge.