• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.199-208
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• 2023

Seismic performance analysis is one of the fundamental steps in the design of new or retrofitting buildings. In the seismic performance analysis, the adapted spectral acceleration curve for a given site mainly governs the seismic behavior of buildings. Since every soil site (class) has a different impact on the spectral accelerations of input motions, different spectral acceleration curves have to be involved for every soil class that the building is located on top of. Modern seismic design codes (e.g., Eurocode 8, EC8, or Turkish Building Earthquake Code, TBEC) provide design response spectra for all the soil classes to be used in the building design or retrofitting. This research aims to evaluate the EC8 and TBEC based design response spectra using the spectra of real earthquake input motions that occurred (and were recorded at only soil classes A, B and C, no recording is available at soil class D) in a specific area in Turkey. It also conducts response spectrum analyses of 5, 10 and 13 floor reinforced concrete building models under EC8, TBEC and actual spectral response curves. The results indicate that the EC8 and especially TBEC given design response spectra cannot be able to represent the mean actual spectral acceleration curves at soil classes A, B and C. This is particularly observed at periods higher than 0.3 s, 0.42 s and 0.55 s for the TBEC design response spectra, 0.54 s, 0.65 s and 0.84 s for the EC8 design response spectra at soil classes A, B and C, respectively. This is also reflected to the shear forces of three building models, as actual spectral acceleration curves lead to the highest shear forces, followed by the shear forces obtained from EC8 and, then, the TBEC design response spectra.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.709-718
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• 2020

Fragility curves are useful tools to estimate the damage probability of buildings owing to seismic actions. The purpose of this study is to investigate seismic vulnerability of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings, according to the 2007 and 2018 Turkish Seismic Codes, using fragility curves. For the numerical analyses, typical five- and seven-storey RC buildings were selected and incremental dynamic analyses (IDA) were performed. To complete the IDAs, eleven earthquake acceleration records multiplied by various scaling factors from 0.2g to 0.8g were used. To predict nonlinearity, a distributed hinge model that involves material and geometric nonlinearity of the structural members was used. Damages to confined concrete and reinforcement bar of structural members were obtained by considering the unit deformation demands of the 2007 Turkish Seismic Code (TSC-2007) and the 2018 Turkey Building Earthquake Code (TBEC-2018). Vulnerability evaluation of these buildings was performed using fragility curves based on the results of incremental dynamic analyses. Fragility curves were generated in terms of damage levels occurring in confined concrete and reinforcement bar of structural members with a lognormal distribution assumption. The fragility curves show that the probability of damage occurring is more according to TBEC-2018 than according to TSC-2007 for selected buildings.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.4
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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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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2023

"Performance-based design (PBD)" is based on designing a structure with choosing a performance target under design criteria to increase the structure's resistance against earthquake effect. The plastic hinge formation is determined as one of the fundamental data in finite elements nonlinear analysis to distinguish the condition of the structure where more significant potential damage could occur. If the number of plastic hinges in the structure is increased, the total horizontal load capability of the structure is increased, also. Theoretically, when the number of plastic hinges of the plane frame structure reaches "the degree of hyperstaticity plus one", the structure will reach the capability of the largest ultimate horizontal load. As the number of plastic hinges to be formed in the structure increases towards the theoretical plastic hinge number (TPHN), the total horizontal load capability of the structure increases, proportionally. In the previous studies of the authors, the features of examining the new performance criteria were revealed and it was formulated as follows "Increase the total number of plastic hinges to be formed in the structure to the number of theoretical plastic hinges as much as possible and keep the structure below its targeted performance with related codes". With this new performance criterion, it has been shown that the total lateral load capability of the building is higher than the total lateral load capability obtained with the traditional PBD method by the FEMA 440 and FEMA 356 design guides. In this study, PBD analysis results of structures with frame carrier systems are presented in the light of the Turkey Building Earthquake Code 2019. As a result of this study, it has been shown that the load capability of the structure in the examples of structures with frame carrier system increases by using this new performance criterion presented, compared to the results of the examination with the traditional PBD method in TBEC 2019.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.845-865
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• 2022

In this study, the performance of shear deficient reinforced concrete (RC) beams with rectangular cross-sections, which were externally bonded reinforced (EBR) with high strength CFRP and GFRP strips composite along shear spans, has been experimentally and analytically investigated under vertical load. In the study, the minimum CFRP and GFRP strips width over spacing were considered. The shear beam with turned end to a bending beam was investigated by applying different composite strips. Therefore various arising in each of strength, ductility, rigidity, and energy dissipation capacity were obtained. A total of 12 small-scaled experimental programs have been performed. Beam dimensions have been taken as 100×150×1000 mm. Four beams have been tested as unstrengthened samples. This paper focuses on the effect of minimum CFRP and GFRP strip width on behaviours of RC beams shear-strengthened with full-wrapping, U-wrapping, and U-wrapping+longitudinal bonding strips. Strengthened beams showed significant increments for flexural ductility, energy dissipation, and inelastic performance. The full wrapping strips applied against shear failure have increased the load-carrying capacity of samples 53%-63% interval rate. Although full wrapping is the best strengthening choice, the U-wrapping and U-wrapping+longitudinal strips of both CFRP and GFRP bonding increased the shear capacity by 53%~75% compared to the S2 sample. In terms of ductility, the best result has been obtained by the type of strengthening where the S5 beam was completely GFRP wrapped. The experimental results were also compared with the analytically given by ACI440.2R-17, TBEC-2019 and FIB-2001. Especially in U-wrapped beams, the estimation of FIB was determined to be 81%. The estimates of the other codes are far from meeting the experimental results; therefore, essential improvements should be applied to the codes, especially regarding CFRP and GFRP deformation and approaches for longitudinal strip connections. According to the test results, it is suggested that GFRP, which is at least as effective but cheaper than CFRP, may be preferred for strengthening applications.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.113-120
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• 2008

In this study, The TRITGO code was introduced, which can predict the amount of tritium production, it's transport, removal, distribution and the level of contamination for the produced hydrogen by the tritium on the VHTR (very high temperature gas cooled reactor). The TRITGO code was improved so that the permeation to the IS Iodine Sulfide) loop for producing the hydrogen can be simulated. The contamination level of the produced hydrogen by the tritium was predicted by the improved code for the VHTR with 600MW thermal power. The contamination level for the produced hydrogen by tritium was predicted as 0.055 Bq/$H_2-g$. This level is three order of lower than the regulation value of 56 Bq/$H_2-g$ from Japan. From this study, the following results were obtained. it is important that the fuel coating (SiC layer) should be kept intact to prevent the tritium from releasing. Also it is necessary that the level of impurity such as 3He and Li in the helium coolant and the reflector consisting of the graphite should be kept as low as possible. It was found that the capacity of the purification system for filtering the impurities directly from the coolant will be the important design parameter.