• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.807-833
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• 2015

While tuned mass dampers are found to be effective in suppressing vibration in a tall building, integrating it with a semi-active control system enables it to perform more efficiently. In this paper a forty-story tall steel-frame building designed according to the Canadian standard, has been studied with and without semi-active and passive tuned mass dampers. The building is assumed to be located in the Vancouver, Canada. A magneto-rheological fluid based semi-active tuned mass damper has been optimally designed to suppress the vibration of the structure against seismic excitation, and an appropriate control procedure has been implemented to optimize the building's semi-active tuned mass system to reduce the seismic response. Furthermore, the control system parameters have been adjusted to yield the maximum reduction in the structural displacements at different floor levels. The response of the structure has been studied with a variety of ground motions with low, medium and high frequency contents to investigate the performance of the semi-active tuned mass damper in comparison to that of a passive tuned mass damper. It has been shown that the semi-active control system modifies structural response more effectively than the classic passive tuned mass damper in both mitigation of maximum displacement and reduction of the settling time of the building.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.649-664
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• 2016

A seismic damaged bridge may be hit again by a strong aftershock or another earthquake in a short interval before the repair work has been done. However, discussions about the impact of the unrepaired damages on the residual earthquake resistance of a steel bridge are very scarce at present. In this paper, nonlinear time-history analysis of a steel arch bridge was performed using multi-scale hybrid model. Two strong historical records of main shock-aftershock sequences were taken as the input ground motions during the dynamic analysis. The strain response, local deformation and the accumulation of plasticity of the bridge with and without unrepaired seismic damage were compared. Moreover, the effect of earthquake sequence on crack initiation caused by low-cycle fatigue of the steel bridge was investigated. The results show that seismic damage has little impact on the overall structural displacement response during the aftershock. The residual local deformation, strain response and the cumulative equivalent plastic strain are affected to some extent by the unrepaired damage. Low-cycle fatigue of the steel arch bridge is not induced by the earthquake sequences. Damage indexes of low-cycle fatigue predicted based on different theories are not exactly the same.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.701-709
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• 2017

Seismic dissipation devices can play a crucial role in mitigating earthquake damages, loss of life and post-event repair and downtime costs. This research investigates the use of ring springs with high-force-to-volume (HF2V) dissipaters to create damage-free, recentring connections and structures. HF2V devices are passive rate-dependent extrusion-based devices with high energy absorption characteristics. Ring springs are passive energy dissipation devices with high self-centring capability to reduce the residual displacements. Dynamic behaviour of a system with nonlinear structural stiffness and supplemental hybrid damping via HF2V devices and ring spring dampers is used to investigate the design space and potential. HF2V devices are modelled with design forces equal to 5% and 10% of seismic weight and ring springs are modelled with loading stiffness values of 20% and 40% of initial structural stiffness and respective unloading stiffness of 7% and 14% of structural stiffness (equivalent to 35% of their loading stiffness). Using a suite of 20 design level earthquake ground motions, nonlinear response spectra for 8 different configurations are generated. Results show up to 50% reduction in peak displacements and greater than 80% reduction in residual displacements of augmented structure compared to the baseline structure. These gains come at a cost of a significant rise in the base shear values up to 200% mainly as a result of the force contributed by the supplemental devices.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.623-632
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• 2018

Performance-Based Plastic Design (PBPD) method has been recently developed to evaluate the behavior of structures in different performance levels. The PBPD method utilizes a base shear force and a lateral load pattern that are estimated based on energy and yielding mechanism concepts. Using of current lateral force pattern results in weak structural members in upper stories of a structure so that the values of the story drift in these stories are larger than the target drift, particularly in high-rise buildings. Therefore, such distribution requires modifications to overcome this drawback. This paper proposes a modified lateral load pattern for steel Eccentrically Braced Frames (EBFs) based on parametric study. In order to achieve the modified load pattern, a group of 26 EBFs has been analyzed under a set of 20 earthquake ground motions. Additionally, results of nonlinear dynamic analyses of EBFs have been post-processed by nonlinear regression analysis in order to derive the new load pattern. To prove the efficiency of present study, three EBFs as examples were designed by modified pattern and current PBPD distribution. Inelastic dynamic analyses results showed that the story drifts using modified lateral load pattern were well within the target values in comparison with current pattern in PBPD, particularly where the effect of the height is significant. The modified load pattern reduces the possibility of underdesigning in upper levels and overdesigning in lower levels of the frames.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.42-47
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• 2010

Recently, many techniques have been developed for the inspection of pipelines using guided waves. However, few researches have been made on the application of those techniques for buried underground pipes. Guided wave motions in the buried pipes are somewhat different from those of on-ground pipes which have traction-free (air) boundary condition on outer pipe walls and thus are strongly affected by the mechanical property of the surrounding soils. Therefore, it should be investigated the effect of soil properties on the guided wave behavior in buried pipe. On the other hand, the mechanical property of soil is largely depending on its moisture conditions nevertheless of other influential factors such as void ratio. In this study, the effect of moisture conditions in soils on mode attenuation of guided waves in the buried pipe is investigated. To this end, numerical study is performed to characterize mode attenuation behavior in buried pipes and the effective mode which is suitable for long range inspection is identified.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2014

The use of Buckling Restrained Braces (BRB) for enhancing the performance of the buildings is gaining wider acceptance. This paper presents the first application of these devices in a major high-rise building in the Philippines. A 50-storey residential reinforced concrete building tower, with ductile core wall, with BRB system is investigated. The detailed modeling and design procedure of buckling restrained brace system is presented for the optimal design against the two distinct levels of earthquake ground motions; serviceable behavior for frequent earthquakes and very low probability of collapse under extremely rare earthquakes. The stiffness and strength of the buckling restrained brace system are adjusted to optimize the performance of the structural system under different levels of earthquakes. Response spectrum analysis is conducted for Design Basis Earthquake level and Service level, while nonlinear time history analysis is performed for the most credible earthquake. The case study results show the effectiveness of buckling restrained braces.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1071-1091
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• 2014

Pounding of adjacent structures are always a notable reason for damages after strong ground motions, but it is already unforeseen detail in newly constructed structures. Thus, several approaches have been proposed in order to prevent the pounding of structures. By using optimally tuned mass dampers, it is possible to decrease the displacement vibrations of structures. But in adjacent structures, the response of both structures must be considered in the objective function of optimization process. In this paper, two different designs of Tuned Mass Dampers (TMD) are investigated. The first design covers independent TMDs on both structures. In the second design, adjacent structures are coupled by a TMD on the top of the structures. Optimum TMD parameters are found by using the developed optimization methodology employing harmony search algorithm. The proposed method is presented with single degree of freedom and multiple degree of freedom structures. Results show that the coupled design is not effective on multiple degree of freedom adjacent structures. The coupled design is only effective for rigid structures with a single degree of freedom while the use of independent TMDs are effective on both rigid and flexural structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.493-515
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• 2008

Semi-active control systems have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years because these systems can operate on battery power alone, proving advantageous during seismic events when the main power source of the structure may likely fail. The behavior of semi-active devices is often highly non-linear and requires suitable and efficient control algorithm. This paper presents the comparative study and performance of variable semi-active friction dampers by using recently proposed predictive control law with direct output feedback. In this control law, the variable slip force of semi-active variable friction damper is kept slightly lower than the critical friction force, which allows the damper to remain in the slip state during an earthquake, resulting in improved energy dissipation capability. This control algorithm is able to produce a continuous and smooth slip forces for a variable friction damper. The numerical examples include a structure controlled with multiple variable semi-active friction dampers and with multiple passive friction dampers. A parameter, gain multiplier defined as the ratio of damper force to critical damper control force, is investigated under four different real earthquake ground motions, which plays an important role in the present control algorithm of the damper. The numerically evaluated optimum parametric value is considered for the analysis of the structure with dampers. The numerical results of the variable friction dampers show better performance over the passive dampers in reducing the seismic response of structures.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.55-66
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• 2018

A large main shock may consist of numerous aftershocks with a short period. The aftershocks induced by a large main shock can cause the collapse of a structure that has been already damaged by the preceding main shock. These aftershocks are important factors in structural damages. Furthermore, despite what is often assumed in seismic design codes, earthquakes do not usually occur as a single event, but as a series of strong aftershocks and even fore shocks. For this reason, this study investigates the effect and potential of consecutive earthquakes on the response and behavior of concrete structures. At first, six moment resisting concrete frames with 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 and 15 stories are designed and analyzed under two different records with seismic sequences from real and artificial cases. The damage states of the model frames were then measured by the Park and Ang's damage index. From the results of this investigation, it is observed that the sequences of ground motions can almost double the accumulated damage and increased response of structures. Therefore, it is certainly insufficient to ignore this effect in the design procedure of structures. Also, the use of artificial seismic sequences as design earthquake can lead to non-conservative prediction of behavior and damage of structures under real seismic sequences.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.203-209
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to present the state of practice being used in the Philippines for the performance-based seismic design of reinforced concrete tall buildings. Initially, the overall methodology follows "An Alternative Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings Located in the Los Angeles Region, 2008", which was developed by Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council. After 2010, the design procedure follows "Tall Buildings Initiative, Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings, 2010" developed by Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). After the completion of preliminary design in accordance with code-based design procedures, the performance of the building is checked for serviceable behaviour for frequent earthquakes (50% probability of exceedance in 30 years, i.e,, with 43-year return period) and very low probability of collapse under extremely rare earthquakes (2% of probability of exceedance in 50 years, i.e., 2475-year return period). In the analysis, finite element models with various complexity and refinements are used in different types of analyses using, linear-static, multi-mode pushover, and nonlinear-dynamic analyses, as appropriate. Site-specific seismic input ground motions are used to check the level of performance under the potential hazard, which is likely to be experienced. Sample project conducted using performance-based seismic design procedures is also briefly presented.