• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.29-46
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• 1999

The performance based design obligates quantitative assessment of required performances by means of transparent and objective science. In this design scheme, simulation of both macro and micro-scale structural behaviors is thought to be a powerful tool. This paper proposes a way how to unify the structural safety and serviceability check method and durability assessment of RC structures. Though component chemical-physical processes are crudely assumed, system dynamics of micro-scale pore structure formation and macro-scale defects and deformation of structures was shown as possible and promising approach in future. The authors understand that the unification of structural and durability design has just started. For further progress and development, predictive tool of structural behaviors from birth to death of concrete under any specified environment and load serves as an essential technicality.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.727-747
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• 2008

In the framework of the SPEAR (Seismic PErformance Assessment and Rehabilitation) research Project, an under-designed three storey RC frame structure, designed to sustain only gravity loads, was subjected, in three different configurations 'as-built', Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) retrofitted and rehabilitated by reinforced concrete (RC) jacketing, to a series of bi-directional pseudodynamic (PsD) tests under different values of peak ground acceleration (PGA) (from a minimum of 0.20g to a maximum of 0.30g). The seismic deficiencies exhibited by the 'as-built' structure after the test at PGA level of 0.20g were confirmed by a post - test assessment of the structural seismic capacity performed by a nonlinear static pushover analysis implemented on the structure lumped plasticity model. To improve the seismic performance of the 'as-built' structure', two rehabilitation interventions by using either FRP laminates or RC jacketing were designed. Assumptions for the analytical modeling, design criteria and calculation procedures along with local and global intervention measures and their installation details are herein presented and discussed. Nonlinear static pushover analyses for the assessment of the theoretical seismic capacity of the structure in each retrofitted configuration were performed and compared with the experimental outcomes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.399-409
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• 2024

Assessment of existing concrete bridges is a challenge for owners. It has greater economic impact when compared to designing new bridges. When using conventional linear analyses, judgment of the engineer is required to understand the behavior of redundant structures after the first element in the structural system reaches its ultimate capacity. The alternative is to use a predictive tool such as advanced nonlinear finite element analyses (ANFEA) to assess the overall structural behavior. This paper proposes a new reliability framework for the assessment of existing bridge structures using ANFEA. A general framework defined in previous works, accounting for material uncertainties and concrete model performance, is adapted to the context of the assessment of existing bridges. A "shifted" reliability problem is defined under the assumption of quasi-deterministic dead load effects. The overall exercise is viewed as a progressive pushover analysis up to structural failure, where the actual safety index is compared at each event to a target reliability index.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.387-394
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• 2017

Seismic probabilistic risk assessment (SPRA) requires a large number of simulations to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of structural and nonstructural components in nuclear power plants. The effect of structural modeling and analysis assumptions on dynamic analysis of 3D and simplified 2D stick models of auxiliary buildings and the attached nonstructural components is investigated. Dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of building models are also evaluated, as well as the computational accuracy of the models. The presented results provide a better understanding of the dynamic behavior and seismic performance of auxiliary buildings. The results also help to quantify the impact of uncertainties associated with modeling and analysis of simplified numerical models of structural and nonstructural components subjected to seismic shaking on the predicted seismic failure probabilities of these systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2012

In bridge engineering, maintenance strategies and thus budgetary demands are highly influenced by construction type and quality of design. Nowadays bridge owners and planners tend to include life-cycle cost analyses in their decision processes regarding the overall design trying to optimize structural reliability and durability within financial constraints. Smart permanent and short term monitoring can reduce the associated risk of new design concepts by observing the performance of structural components during prescribed time periods. The objectives of this paper are the discussion and analysis of influence line or influence field approaches in terms of (a) an efficient incorporation of monitoring information in the structural performance assessment, (b) an efficient characterization of performance indicators for the assessment of structures, (c) the ability of optimizing the positions of sensors of a monitoring system, and (d) the ability of checking the robustness of the monitoring systems applied to a structure. The proposed influence line- model correction approach has been applied to an integrative monitoring system that has been installed for the performance assessment of an existing three-span jointless bridge.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2011

In this study, nonlinear finite element analysis procedures are presented for the structural performance assessment of damaged reinforced concrete structures. A computer program, named RCAHEST (Reinforced Concrete Analysis in Higher Evaluation System Technology), for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures was used. Material nonlinearity is taken into account by comprising tensile, compressive and shear models of cracked concrete and a model of reinforcing steel. This paper defines a damage index based on the predicted inelastic behavior of reinforced concrete structures. The proposed numerical method for the structural performance of damaged reinforced concrete structures is verified by comparison with reliable experimental results.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.58-64
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• 2011

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.20 no.2 s.76
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• pp.69-79
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• 2007

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.455-468
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• 2006

Smart structural systems are defined as ones that demonstrate the ability to modify their characteristics and/or properties in order to respond favorably to unexpected severe loading conditions. The performance of such a task requires a set of additional components to be integrated within such systems. These components belong to three major categories, sensors, processors and actuators. It is wellknown that all structural systems entail some level of uncertainty, because of their extremely complex nature, lack of complete information, simplifications and modeling. Similarly, sensors, processors and actuators are expected to reflect a similar uncertain behavior. As it is imperative to be able to evaluate the impact of such components on the behavior of the system, it is as important to ensure, or at least evaluate, the reliability of such components. In this paper, a system model for reliability assessment of smart structural systems is outlined. The presented model is considered a necessary first step in the development of a reliability assessment algorithm for smart structural systems. The system model outlines the basic components of the system, in addition to, performance functions and inter-relations among individual components. A fault tree model is developed in order to aggregate the individual underlying component reliabilities into an overall system reliability measure. Identification of appropriate limit states for all underlying components are beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is the objective of this paper to set up the necessary framework for identifying such limit states. A sample model for a three-story single bay smart rigid frame, is developed in order to demonstrate the proposed framework.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.667-678
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• 2022

Moment-resisting frames (MRFs) are among the most conventional steel structures for mid-rise buildings in many earthquake-prone cities. Here, a simplified performance-based methodology is proposed for the seismic collapse capacity assessment of these buildings. This method employs a novel multi-mode pushover analysis to determine the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) of the regular steel MRFs up to the collapse prevention (CP) performance level. The modal combination coefficients used in the proposed pushover analysis, are obtained from two metaheuristic optimization algorithms and a fitting procedure. The design variables for the optimization process are the inter-story drift ratio profiles resulting from the multi-mode pushover analyses, and the objective values are the outcomes of the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). Here, the collapse capacity of the structures is assessed in three to five steps, using a modified IDA procedure. A series of regular mid-rise steel MRFs are selected and analyzed to calculate the modal combination coefficients and to validate the proposed approach. The new methodology is verified against the current existing approaches. This comparison shows that the suggested method more accurately evaluates the EDPs and the collapse capacity of the regular MRFs in a robust and easy to implement way.