• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.363-371
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• 2022

Traditional metal dampers have disadvantages such as a higher yield point and inadequate adjustability. The experimental results show that the low yield point steel has superior energy dissipation hysteretic capacity and can be applied to seismic structures. To overcome these deficiencies, a novel compound metal damper comprising both low yield point steel plates and common steel plates is presented. The optimization objectives, including "maximum rigidity" and "full stress state", are proposed to obtain the optimal edge shape of a compound metal damper. The numerical results show that the optimized composite metal damper has the advantages such as full hysteresis curve, uniform stress distribution, more sufficient energy consumption, and it can adjust the yield strength of the damper according to the engineering requirements. In view of the mechanical characteristics of the compound metal damper, the equivalent model of eccentric cross bracing is established, and the approximate analytical solution of the yield strength and the yield displacement is proposed. A nonlinear simulation analysis is carried out for the overall aseismic capacity of three-layer-frame structures with a compound metal damper. It is verified that a compound metal damper has better energy dissipation capacity and superior seismic performance, especially for a damper with double-objective optimized shape.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 1985

The tension leg platform (TLP) is a kind of compliant structures, and is also a type of moored stable platform with a buoyancy exceeding the weight because of having tensioned vertical anchor cables. In this paper, among the various kinds of tension leg structures, Deep Oil Technology (DOT) TLP was analyzed because it has large-displacement portions of the immersed surface such as vertical corner pontoons and small-diameter elongated members such as cross-bracing. It also has results of hydraulic model tests, comparable with theorectical analysis. Because of the vertical axes of symmetry in the three vertical buoyant legs and because there are no larger horizontal buoyant members between these three vertical members, it was decided to develop a numerical algorithm which would predict the dynamic response of the DOT TLP using the previously developed numerical algorithm Floating Vessel Response Simulation (FVRS) for vertically axisymmetric bodies of revolution. In addition, a linearized hydroelastic Morison equation subroutine would be developed to account for the hydrodynamic pressure forces on the small member cross bracing. Interaction between the large buoyant members or small member cross bracings is considered to be negligible and is not included in the analysis. The dynamic response of the DOT TLP in the surge mode is compared with the results of the TLP algorithm for various combinations of diffraction and Morison forces and moments. The results which include the Morison equation are better than the results for diffraction only. This is because the vertically axisymmetric buoyant members are only marginally large enough to consider diffractions effects. The prototype TLP results are expected to be more inertially dominated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.49-56
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• 2013

The statistics of recent accidents in warehouses show that a heavy toll of lives were produced by various accidents, e.g. collision, overturn, fall, slip, exposure to harmful substances or environments, etc. Of significant concern amongst them is the collision, especially the collision between forklift and storage rack structure. Accordingly, this study focuses on behavioral characteristics of rack structure subjected to dynamic impact loading of a forklift. For this purpose, time-domain response analysis has been performed on a standard 2-bay six-story rack structure consisting of columns, beams and bracing members with perforated open section. In order to investigate the most critical scenario, the impact loads are applied in both down-aisle and cross-aisle directions, and the impact locations are also varied along the shelves of the palettes. In order to deal with storage distributions, three types of rack structures are further taken into account: original empty rack structure with no storage, half-loaded rack structure and fully-loaded rack structure. The numerical simulation results demonstrate that the dynamic characteristics of the rack structure are significantly dependent on the distribution of the storage goods and its natural period varies from 0.24sec to 1.06sec, approximately 4.4 times. Further, the parametric studies show that the forklift impact is most critical to the safety of the rack structure when it collides either at the base or at the top of the rack structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.381-394
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• 2003

While constructing multistorey buildings with reinforced concrete framed structures it is a common practice to provide parking space for vehicles at the ground floor level. This floor will generally consist of open frames without any infilled walls and is called an open-storey. From a post disaster damage survey carried out, it was noticed that during the January 26, 2001 Bhuj (Gujarat, India) earthquake, a large number of reinforced concrete framed buildings with open-storey at ground floor level, suffered extensive damage and in some cases catastrophic collapse. This has brought into sharp focus the need to carry out systematic studies on the seismic vulnerability of such buildings. Determination of vulnerability requires realistic structural response estimations taking into account the stochasticity in the loading and the system parameters. The stochastic finite element method can be effectively used to model the random fields while carrying out such studies. This paper presents the details of stochastic finite element analysis of a five-storey three-bay reinforced concrete framed structure with open-storey subjected to standard seismic excitation. In the present study, only the stochasticity in the system parameters is considered. The stochastic finite element method used for carrying out the analysis is based on perturbation technique. Each random field representing the stochastic geometry/material property is discretised into correlated random variables using spatial averaging technique. The uncertainties in geometry and material properties are modelled using the first two moments of the corresponding parameters. In evaluating the stochastic response, the cross-sectional area and Young' modulus are considered as independent random fields. To study the influence of correlation length of random fields, different correlation lengths are considered for random field discretisation. The spatial expectations and covariances for displacement response at any time instant are obtained as the output. The effect of open-storey is modelled by suitably considering the stiffness of infilled walls in the upper storey using cross bracing. In order to account for changes in soil conditions during strong motion earthquakes, both fixed and hinged supports are considered. The results of the stochastic finite element based seismic analysis of reinforced concrete framed structures reported in this paper demonstrate the importance of considering the effect of open-storey with appropriate support conditions to estimate the realistic response of buildings subjected to earthquakes.