• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.563-577
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• 2022

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of a new seismic enhancement method for existing reinforced concrete (RC) frames by using an external sub-structure, the hybrid seismic retrofit method (HSRM) system. This retrofit system is an H-shaped frame bolt-connected to an existing RC frame with an infilled-concrete layer between their gaps. Two RC frames were built, one with and one without HSRM, and tested under cyclic loading. The experimental findings showed that the retrofitted RC frame was superior to the non-retrofitted specimen in terms of initial stiffness, peak load, and energy dissipation capacity. A numerical simulation using a commercial program was employed for verification with the experiments. The results obtained from the simulations were consistent with those from the experiments, indicating the finite element (FE) models can simulate the seismic behaviors of bare RC frame and retrofitted RC frame using HSRM.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.116-124
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• 2011

RC frames with unreinforced masonry infiledl walls are common in worldwide. Since infilled walls are normally considered as non-structural elements, their presence is often ignored by engineers. In this study, to improve the seismic performance of masonry walls, hexagonal block was developed and the influence of masonry infilled wall on the seismic performance of reinforced concrete(RC) frames that were designed in accordance with current code provisions without the consideration of earthquake loadings are investigated. Two 1/2 scale, single story, single bay, frame specimens were tested. The parameters investigated included that the strength of infilled wallls with respect to that of the lateral load history. The experimental results indicate that infilled walls can significantly improve the lateral stiffness and strength of RC frames. The lateral loads developed by the infilled frame specimen is higher than that of the bare frame. It also indicates that infilled walls can be potentially used to improve the performance of existing nonductile frames. For this purpose. methods should be developed to avoid irreparable damage and catastrophic failure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.207-222
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• 2010

Fire incident in buildings is common, so the fire safety design of the framed structure is imperative, especially for the unprotected or partly protected bare steel frames. However, software for structural fire analysis is not widely available. As a result, the performance-based structural fire design is urged on the basis of using user-friendly and conventional nonlinear computer analysis programs so that engineers do not need to acquire new structural analysis software for structural fire analysis and design. The tool is desired to have the capacity of simulating the different fire scenarios and associated detrimental effects efficiently, which includes second-order P-D and P-d effects and material yielding. Also the nonlinear behaviour of large-scale structure becomes complicated when under fire, and thus its simulation relies on an efficient and effective numerical analysis to cope with intricate nonlinear effects due to fire. To this end, the present fire study utilizes a second-order elastic/plastic analysis software NIDA to predict structural behaviour of bare steel framed structures at elevated temperatures. This fire study considers thermal expansion and material degradation due to heating. Degradation of material strength with increasing temperature is included by a set of temperature-stress-strain curves according to BS5950 Part 8 mainly, which implicitly allows for creep deformation. This finite element stiffness formulation of beam-column elements is derived from the fifth-order PEP element which facilitates the computer modeling by one member per element. The Newton-Raphson method is used in the nonlinear solution procedure in order to trace the nonlinear equilibrium path at specified elevated temperatures. Several numerical and experimental verifications of framed structures are presented and compared against solutions in literature. The proposed method permits engineers to adopt the performance-based structural fire analysis and design using typical second-order nonlinear structural analysis software.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.861-871
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• 2021

This study aims at investigating the hysteretic performance of a novel composite wall panel fabricated by infilling aerated concrete blocks into a novel light-steel frame used for low-rise residential buildings. The novel light-steel frame is consisted of two thin-wall rectangular hollow section columns and a truss-beam assembled using patented U-shape connectors. Two bare light-steel frames and two composite wall panels have been tested to failure under horizontal cyclic loading. Hysteretic curves, lateral resistance and stiffness of four specimens have been investigated and analyzed. Based on the testing results, it is found that the masonry infill can significantly increase the lateral resistance and stiffness of the novel light-steel frame, about 2.3~3 and 21.2~31.5 times, respectively. Failure mode of the light-steel frame is local yielding of the column. For the composite wall panel, firstly, masonry infill is crushed, subsequently, local yielding may occur at the column if loading continues. Hysteretic curve of the composite wall panel obtained is not plump, implying a poor energy dissipation capacity. However, the light-steel frame of the composite wall panel can dissipate more energy after the masonry infill is crushed. Therefore, the composite wall panel has a much higher energy dissipation capacity compared to the bare light-steel frame.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.473-491
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• 2022

The research investigates experimentally the effect of confinement on structural behavior at the ends of beam-column in reinforced concrete (RC) frames. In the experimental study, five specimens consisting of 1/3-scaled RC frames having single-bay, representing the traditional deficiencies of existing buildings constructed without receiving proper engineering service is investigated. The RC frame specimens were produced to represent most of the existing buildings in Turkey that have damage potential. To decrease the probable damage to the existing buildings exposed to earthquakes, the carbon Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) strengthening technique (fully wrapping) was used on the ends of the RC frame elements to increase the energy dissipation and deformation capacity. The specimens were tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading with constant axial loads. They were constructed satisfying the weak column-strong beam condition and consisting of low-strength concrete, such as compressive strength of 15 MPa. The test results were compared and evaluated considering stiffness, strength, energy dissipation capacity, structural damping, ductility, and damage propagation in detail. Comprehensive investigations of these experimental results reveal that the strengthening of a brittle frame with fully-TRM wrapping with non-anchored was effective in increasing the stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation capacities of RC bare frames. It was also observed that the frame-only-retrofitting with an infill wall is not enough to increase the ductility capacity. In this case, both the frame and infill wall must be retrofitted with TRM composite to increase the stiffness, lateral load carrying, ductility and energy dissipation capacities of RC frames. The presented strengthening method can be an alternative strengthening technique to enhance the seismic performance of existing or moderately damaged RC buildings.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.683-692
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• 2011

In piloti-type low-rise RC residential buildings, severe damages have been usually concentrated at piloti stories under the earthquake. In this study, a piloti story was retrofitted by installation of buckling-restrained braces (BRB's) to increase strength and stiffness of piloti story and by application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet on columns to avoid the brittle shear and axial failure of columns. To verify this retrofit performance, reversed cyclic lateral load tests were performed on 1:5 scale bare and retrofitted frames. The test results showed that yield strength (43.2 kN) appeared to be significantly larger than design value (30 kN) due to the increase of strength in the compression side, but the stiffness value (11.6 kN/mm) turned out to be approximately one-half of the design value (24.2 kN/mm). The reasons for this difference in stiffness were due to slippage at joint between the frame and the BRB's, displacement and rotation at footing. The energy absorption capacity of the retrofitted frame was 7.5 times larger than that of the bare frame. The change of the number of load cells under the footing from 2 to 1 reduced lateral stiffness from 11.6 kN/mm to 6 kN/mm, which was only three times larger than that of the bare frame (2.1 kN/mm).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.121-135
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• 2022

Many public buildings such as schools, hospitals, etc., where partial infill walls are present in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, have undergone undesirable damage/failure attributed to captive column effect during a moderate to severe earthquake shaking. Often, the situation gets worsened when these RC frames are non-ductile in nature, thus reducing the deformable capability of the frame. Also, in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, it is mandatory to use fly-ash bricks for construction so as to reduce the burden on the disposal of fly-ash produced at thermal power plants. In some scenario, when the non-ductile RC frame, partially infilled by fly-ash bricks, suffers major structural damage, the challenge remains on how to retrofit and restore it. Thus, in this study, two full-scale one-bay, one-story non-ductile RC frame models, namely, bare frame and RC partially infilled frame with fly-ash bricks in 50% of its opening area are considered. In the previous experiments, these models were subjected to slow-cyclic displacement-controlled loading to replicate damage due to a moderate earthquake. Now, in this study these damaged frames were retrofitted and an experimental investigation was performed on the retrofitted specimens to examine the effectiveness of the proposed retrofitting scheme. A hybrid retrofitting technique combining epoxy injection grouting with an innovative and easy-to-implement steel jacketing technique was proposed. This proposed retrofitting method has ensured proper confinement of damaged concrete. The retrofitted models were subjected to the same slow cyclic displacement-controlled loading which was used to damage the frames. The experimental study concluded that the hybrid retrofitting technique was quite effective in enhancing and regaining various seismic performance parameters such as, lateral strength and lateral stiffness of partially fly-ash brick infilled RC frame. Thus, the steel jacketing retrofitting scheme along with the epoxy injection grouting can be relied on for possible repair of the structural members which are damaged due to the captive column effect during the seismic shaking.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.233-241
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• 2020

This paper is to investigate the retrofitting effect for a non-seismic reinforced concrete frame strengthened by perimeter steel moment frames with indirect integrity, which ameliorates the problems of the direct integrity method. To achieve this, first, full-scale tests were conducted to address the structural behavior of a two-story non-seismic reinforced concrete frame and a strengthened frame. The non-seismic frame showed a maximum strength of 185 kN because the flexural-shear failure at the bottom end of columns on the first floor was governed, and shear cracks were concentrated at the beam-column joints on the second floor. The strengthened frame possessed a maximum strength of 338 kN, which is more than 1.8 times that of the non-seismic specimen. A considerable decrease in the quantity of cracks for the strengthened frame was observed compared with the non-seismic frame, while there was the obvious appearance of the failure pattern due to the shear crack. The lateral-resisting capacity for the non-seismic bare frame and the strengthened frame may be determined per the specified shear strength of the reinforced columns in accordance with the distance to a critical section. The effective depth of the column may be referred to as the longitudinal length from the border between the column and the foundation. The lateral-resisting capacity for the non-seismic bare frame and the strengthened frame may be reasonably determined per the specified shear strength of the reinforced columns in accordance with the distance to a critical section. The effective depth of the column may be referred to as the longitudinal length from the border between the column and the foundation. The proposed method had an error of about 2.2% for the non-seismic details and about 4.4% for the strengthened frame based on the closed results versus the experimental results.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.173-189
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• 2015

In reality, masonry infill modifies the seismic response of reinforced concrete (r.c.) frame structures by increasing the overall rigidity of structure which results in: increasing of total seismic load value, decreasing of deformations and period of vibration, therefore masonry infill frame structures have larger capacity of absorbing and dissipating seismic energy. The aim of the paper is to explore and assess actual influence of masonry infill on seismic response of r.c. frame structures, to determine whether it's justified to disregard masonry infill influence and to determine appropriate way to consider infill influence by design. This was done by modeling different structures, bare frame structures as well as masonry infill frame structures, while varying masonry infill to r.c. frame stiffness ratio and seismic intensity. Further resistance envelope for those models were created and compared. Different structures analysis have shown that the seismic action on infilled r.c. frame structure is almost always twice as much as seismic action on the same structure with bare r.c. frames, regardless of the seismic intensity. Comparing different models resistance envelopes has shown that, in case of lower stiffness r.c. frame structure, masonry infill (both lower and higher stiffness) increased its lateral load capacity, in average, two times, but in case of higher stiffness r.c. frame structures, influence of masonry infill on lateral load capacity is insignificant. After all, it is to conclude that the optimal structure type depends on its exposure to seismic action and its masonry infill to r.c. frame stiffness ratio.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2016

In this study, finite element analyses of masonry infilled frames using a general purpose FE program, ABAQUS, were conducted. Analysis models consisted of the bare frame, infilled frames with masonry wall thickness of 0.5B and 1.0B, respectively. The masonry walls were constructed using the concrete bricks which were generally used in Korea as infilled wall. The material properties of frames and masonry for the analysis were obtained from material tests. However, four times increased the tensile strength was used for 1.0B wall, which is seemingly due to the differences in locating the bricks. The force-displacement relation and development of crack from the FE analysis were very similar to those from the experiments. From the FEA results, contact force between the frame and masonry, distribution of shear force and bending moments in frame members were analyzed. Obtained contact stress shows a trianglur distribution, and the contact length for 0.5B speciment and 1.0B specimen were close to the value estimated using ASCE 41-06 equation and ASCE 41-13 equation, respectively. Obtained shear force and bending moment distribution seems to replicate actual behavior which originates from the contact stress and gap between the frame and masonry.