• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.45-52
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• 2019

The purpose of the paper is to introduce a system that reduces the occurrence of weak-story in the event of earthquake. Weak-story concentrates deformation on the story and causes all member to collapse before the capacity of all member is reached. This paper introduces Strong-Back system (SB) to protect weak story. SB is a hybrid of zipper frame, tied eccentrically braced frame, and elastic truss system and it is divided into elastic and inelastic areas. Elastic areas prevent the generation of weak story by distributing energy, and inelastic areas dissipate energy through buckling or yielding. In this paper, the seismic performance is evaluated by comparing the four type braced frame with SB through push-over analysis. The four criteria are compared from the base shear, the ductility capacity, the column failure order, and the quantity of brace. As a result, SB proved to have sufficient performance to protect the weak-story.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.3
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• pp.421-433
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• 2020

Masonry infills are normally considered as non-structural elements in design practice, therefore, the interaction between the bounding frame and the strength contribution of masonry infills is commonly ignored in the seismic analysis work of the RC frames. However, a number of typical RC frames with irregular distributed masonry infills have suffered from undesirable weak-story failure in major earthquakes, which indicates that ignoring the influence of masonry infills may cause great seismic collapse risk of RC frames. This paper presented the investigation on the risk of seismic collapse of RC frames with irregularly distributed masonry infills through a large number of nonlinear time history analyses (NTHAs). Based on the results of NTHAs, seismic fragility curves were developed for RC frames with various distribution patterns of masonry infills. It was found that the existence of masonry infills generally reduces the collapse risk of the RC frames under both frequent happened and very strong earthquakes, however, the severe irregular distribution of masonry infills, such as open ground story scenario, results in great risk of forming a weak story failure. The strong-column weak-beam (SCWB) ratio has been widely adopted in major seismic design codes to control the potential of weak story failures, where a SCWB ratio value about 1.2 is generally accepted as the lower limit. In this study, the effect of SCWB ratio on inter-story drift distribution was also parametrically investigated. It showed that improving the SCWB ratio of the RC frames with irregularly distributed masonry infills can reduce inter-story drift concentration index under earthquakes, therefore, prevent weak story failures. To achieve the same drift concentration index limit of the bare RC frame with SCWB ratio of about 1.2, which is specified in ACI318-14, the SCWB ratio of masonry-infilled RC frames should be no less than 1.5. For the open ground story scenario, this value can be as high as 1.8.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-161
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• 2015

A significant portion of residential areas of Turkey is located in active earthquake zones. In Turkey occurred major earthquakes in last twenty years, such as Erzincan (1992), Kocaeli and $D{\ddot{u}}zce$ (1999), $Bing{\ddot{o}}l$ (2003), Van (2011). These earthquakes have demonstrated that reinforced concrete (RC) buildings having horizontal and vertical irregularities are significantly damaged, which in turn most of them are collapsed. Architectural design and arrangement of load-bearing system have important effect on RC building since architectural design criteria in design process provide opportunity to make this type of buildings safer and economical under earthquake loads. This study aims to investigate comparatively the effects of weak story irregularity on earthquake behavior and rough construction costs of RC buildings by considering different soil-conditions given in the Turkish Earthquake Code. With this aim, Sta4-CAD program based on matrix displacement method is utilized. Considering that different story height and compressive strength of concrete, and infill walls or their locations are the variables, a set of structural models are developed to determine the effect of them on earthquake behavior and rough construction costs of RC buildings. In conclusion, some recommendations and results related to making RC buildings safer and more economical are presented by comparing results obtained from structural analyses.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.3_4
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• pp.611-628
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• 2012

The inelastic earthquake response of existing, reinforced concrete buildings with an open ground story, designed according to the old Greek codes, is investigated before and after their seismic strengthening with steel braces restricted to the open ground stories. The seismic performance evaluation is based on Part 3 of Eurocode 8 for assessment and retrofitting of buildings. Three and five-story, symmetric and non-symmetric buildings are subjected to a set of seven pairs of synthetic accelerograms, compatible with the design spectrum, and conclusions are drawn regarding the effectiveness of the strengthening solutions. Seismic behavior of the selected models confirms results of previous work regarding the insufficient capacity of the open ground stories for design level earthquakes. It is also shown that strengthening only the weak ground story, a choice having the substantial advantage of low cost and continued usage of the building during its seismic retrofitting, can remove the inherent weakness without shifting the problem to the stories above and thus making such buildings at least as strong as those without a weak first story. This partial strengthening is possible for symmetric as well as eccentric buildings, in which torsion plays a further detrimental role.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.241-248
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• 2000

In order to evaluate the limit earthquake resistance of multi-story steel frames influenced by the strength and stiffness ratios of members a series inelastic response analysis were carried out. From the analysis results the damage distribution rules of multi-story steel frames were proposed. Conclusions are summarized as follows. 1)As the stiffness ratio of beam and column becomes small damage concentrate on the lower end of columns of the first story. 2) Considering the strength and stiffness ratios of beam and column with weak beam type mechanism the equations predicting the damage distribution of multi-story steel frames were proposed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.721-734
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• 2024

In this research, the efficiency of a metallic energy dissipation device for seismic retrofit of an existing structure is evaluated by cyclic loading test. The proposed device, which is called multi-slit damper, is made of weak and strong slit dampers connected in series. Its energy dissipation mechanism consists of two stages: (i) yielding of the weak-slit damper under minor earthquakes; (ii) restraint of further deformations of the weak slit damper and activation of the strong slit damper under major earthquakes using a gap mechanism. A reinforced concrete (RC) frame with characteristics similar to soft-first-story structures is tested under cyclic loading before and after retrofit using the proposed device. The details of the experimental study are described and the test is simulated in an available commercial software to validate the analytical model of the damper. To further verify the applicability of the damper, it is applied to an analysis model of a 4-story structure with soft first story and its seismic performance is evaluated before and after retrofit. The experimental and analysis results show that the multi-slit damper is effective in controlling seismic response of structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.5 s.45
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• pp.53-61
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• 2005

In order to evaluate the limit earthquake resistance of multi-story steel frames influenced by the strength and stiffness ratios of members, a series inelastic response analysis were carried out. From the analysis results, the damage distribution rules of multi-story steel frames were proposed. Conclusions are summarized as follows; 1)As the stiffness ratios of beam and column becomes small, the damage concentrates on the lower end of columns of the first story. 2) Considering the strength and stiffness ratios of the beam and column with weak beam type mechanism, the equations predicting the damage distribution of multi-story steel flames were proposed. 3) Through the equation which was supposed in this study, it is speculated that the damage distribution of the rigid or semirigid beam collapse type multi-story steel structure building can be predicted.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.507-518
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• 2013

The seismic performance of six types of weak-axis steel moment connections was investigated through cyclic testing of six full-scale specimens. These weak-axis moment connections were the column-tree type, WUF-B type, FF-W type, WFP type, BFP-B type and DST type weak-axis connections. The testing results showed that each of these weak-axis connection types achieved excellent seismic performance, except the WFP and the WUF-B types. The WFP and WUF-B connections displayed poor seismic performance because a fracture appeared prematurely at the weld joint due to stress concentrations. The column-tree type connection showed the best seismic behavior such that the story drift ratio could reach 5%.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.446-451
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• 2000

In case of strong earthquake, upper-sheat wall lowe-frame structures show the weak-story failure at lower part. Where we should guarantee sufficient strength, energy dissipation capacity and ductility. In this study, a typical structure was selected for a prototype and four 1:2.5 scaled models, representing the subassemblages including the interior column and the deep beam, were constructed. Experimental parameters include transverse reinforcement ratio and axial force. The non- linear behavior of the subassemblages subjected to the cyclic lateral displac-ement were evaluated through investigation of the ultimate strength, ductility, load-deformation characteristics. From the results of the tests on 4 specimens, it is concluded that the strength increased as the axial force increased and the ductility increased as the transverse reinforcement ratio increased.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.443-454
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• 2017

When eccentrically braced steel frames (EBFs) are in the desired failure mode, links yield at each layer and column bases appear plastically hinged. Traditional design methods cannot accurately predict the inelastic behavior of structures owing to the use of capacity-based design theory. This paper proposes the use of performance-based seismic design (PBSD) method for planning eccentrically braced frames. PBSD can predict and control inelastic deformation of structures by target drift and failure mode. In buildings designed via this process, all links dissipate energy in the rare event of an earthquake, while other members remain in elastic state, and as the story drift is uniform along the structure height, weak layers will be avoided. In this condition, eccentrically braced frames may be more easily rehabilitated after the effects of an earthquake. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated through a sample case study of ten-story K-type EBFs and Y- type EBFs buildings, and is validated by pushover analysis and dynamic analysis. The ultimate state of frames designed by the proposed method will fail in the desired failure mode. That is, inelastic deformation of structure mainly occurs in links; each layer of links involved dissipates energy, and weak layers do not exist in the structure. The PBSD method can provide a reference for structural design of eccentrically braced steel frames.