• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.5
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• pp.487-498
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• 2023

Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings are extensively adopted in many of the growing nations, particularly in India. Window or door openings are required for architectural or functional reasons, which pose a threat to the building's safety. The past earthquakes have shown that the seismic capability of these structures was very weak. Strengthening these unreinforced masonry walls using welded wire mesh (WWM) is one of the most commonly and economical methods. The present experimental study investigates the impact of openings on the shear behaviour of URM walls and the effectiveness of WWM in enhancing the shear performance of masonry wall. In the experimental program 16 specimens were cast, 8 unstrengthen and 8 strengthened specimens, under 8 unstrengthen and strengthened specimens, every 2 specimens had 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% openings and all these walls were tested under diagonal compression. The results show that the shear carrying capacity reduces as the opening percentage increases. However, strengthening the URM specimens using WWM significantly improves the peak load, shear strength, ductility, stiffness, and energy dissipation. Furthermore, the strengthening of the URM walls using WWM compensated the loss of wall capacity caused by the presence of the openings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.161-175
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• 2023

High-damping rubber bearings (HDRB) are commonly used as seismic isolation devices to protect civil engineering structures from earthquakes. However, the nonlinear hysteresis characteristics of the HDRB, such as their dependence on material properties and hardening phenomena, make predicting their behavior during earthquakes difficult. This study proposes a hysteretic model that can accurately predicts the behavior of shear deformation considering the nonlinearity when designing the seismic isolation structures using HDR bearings. To model the hysteretic characteristics of the HDR, dynamic loading tests were performed by applying sinusoidal and random waves on scaled-down specimens. The test results show that the nonlinear characteristics of the HDR strongly correlate with the shear strain experienced in the past. Furthermore, when shear deformation occurred above a certain level, the hardening phenomenon, wherein the stiffness increased rapidly, was confirmed. Based on the experimental results, the dynamic characteristics of the HDR, equivalent stiffness, equivalent damping ratio, and strain energy were quantitatively evaluated and analyzed. In this study, an improved bilinear HDR model that can reproduce the dependence on shear deformation and hardening phenomena was developed. Additionally, by proposing an objective parameter-setting procedure based on the experimental results, the model was devised such that similar parameters could be set by anyone. Further, an actual dynamic analysis could be performed by modeling with minimal parameters. The proposed model corresponded with the experimental results and successfully reproduced the mechanical characteristics evaluated from experimental results within an error margin of 10%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.231-242
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• 2023

This paper represents a comparative study in which Gene Expression Programming (GEP), Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH), and multiple linear regressions (MLR) were utilized to derive new equations for the prediction of time-dependent bearing capacity of pile foundations driven in cohesive soil, technically called pile set-up. This term means that many piles which are installed in cohesive soil experience a noticeable increase in bearing capacity after a specific time. Results of researches indicate that side resistance encounters more increase than toe resistance. The main reason leading to pile setup in saturated soil has been found to be the dissipation of excess pore water pressure generated in the process of pile installation, while in unsaturated conditions aging is the major justification. In this study, a comprehensive dataset containing information about 169 test piles was obtained from literature reviews used to develop the models. to prepare the data for further developments using intelligent algorithms, Data mining techniques were performed as a fundamental stage of the study. To verify the models, the data were randomly divided into training and testing datasets. The most striking difference between this study and the previous researches is that the dataset used in this study includes different piles driven in soil with varied geotechnical characterization; therefore, the proposed equations are more generalizable. According to the evaluation criteria, GEP was found to be the most effective method to predict set-up among the other approaches developed earlier for the pertinent research.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.455-467
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• 2023

Impact damper is a passive damping system that controls undesirable vibration with mass block impacting with stops fixed to the excited structure, introducing momentum exchange and energy dissipation. However, harmful momentum exchange may occur in the random excitation increasing structural response. Based on the mechanism of impact damping system, a semi-active impact damper (SAID) with controllable impact timing as well as a semi-active control strategy is proposed to enhance the seismic performance of engineering structures in this paper. Comparative experimental studies were conducted to investigate the damping performances of the passive impact damper and SAID. The extreme working conditions for SAID were also discussed and approaches to enhance the damping effect under high-intensity excitations were proposed. A numerical simulation model of SAID attached to a frame structure was established to further explore the damping mechanism. The experimental and numerical results show that the SAID has better control effect than the traditional passive impact damper and can effectively broaden the damping frequency band. The parametric studies illustrate the mass ratio and impact damping ratio of SAID can significantly influence the vibration control effect by affecting the impact force.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Due to the irregular shape and the deviation of stiffness center and gravity center, buildings always suffer from complex surface load and vibration response under wind action. This study is dedicated to analyze the surface wind load and wind-induced response of an irregular building, and to discuss the possibility of top swimming pool as a TLD to diminish wind-induced vibration of the structure. Wind tunnel test was carried out on a hotel with irregular shape to analyze the wind load and structural response under 8 wind incident angles. Then a precise numerical model was established and calibrated through experimental results. The top swimming pool was designed according to the principle of frequency modulation, and equations of motion of the control system were derived theoretically. Finally, the wind induced response of the structure controlled by the pool was calculated numerically. The results show that both of wind loads and wind-induced responses of the structure are significantly different with wind incident angle varies, and the across-wind response is nonnegligible. The top swimming pool has acceptable damping effect, and can be designed as TLD to mitigate wind response.

• Journal of Coastal Disaster Prevention
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

In order to examine the characteristics of tsunami run-up heights on impermeable/permeable slope, a numerical wave tank by upgrading LES-WASS-3D was used in this study. Then, the model were compared with existing hydraulic model test for its verification. The numerical results well reproduced experimental results of solitary wave deformation, propagation and run-up height under various conditions. Also, the numerical simulation with a slope boundary condition has been carried out to understand solitary wave run-up on impermeable/permeable slope. It is shown that the run-up heights on permeable slope is 52.64-63.2% smaller than those on the impermeable slope because of wave energy dissipation inside the porous media. In addition, it is revealed that the numerical results with slope boundary condition agreed well with experimental results in comparison with the results by using stair type boundary condition.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.81-88
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to experimentally analyze the seismic performance of beam-column specimens with vertical irregular, which were reinforced with RHS (Replaceable steel haunch system). a steel haunch system. To evaluate the seismic performance of the RHS, three specimens were manufactured and subjected to cycle loading tests. Retrofitted specimens have different beam-upper column stiffness ratio as a variable. The stiffness ratio of beam-upper column were considered to be 1.2 and 0.84. As a result of the test, the specimen reinforced with RHS showed improved maximum load and effective stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity compared to the non-retrofitted specimen with same beam-upper column stiffness ratio. The specimen with 0.84 beam-upper column stiffness ratio showed improved performance than the specimen with 12.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.11
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• pp.4120-4124
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• 2023

High-level radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants are disposed subterraneously utilizing an engineered barrier system (EBS). A gap inevitably exists between the disposal canisters and buffer materials, which may have a negative effect on the thermal transfer and water-blocking efficiency of the system. As few previous experimental works have quantified this effect, this study aimed to create an experimental model for investigating differences in the temperature changes of bentonite buffer in the presence and absence of air gaps between it and a surrounding stainless steel cell. Three test scenarios comprised an empty cell and cells partially or completely filled with bentonite. The temperature was measured inside the buffers and on the inner surface of their surrounding cells, which were artificially heated. The time required for the entire system to reach 100℃ was approximately 40% faster with no gap between the inner cell surface and the bentonite. This suggests that rock-buffer spaces should be filled in practice to ensure the rapid dissipation of heat from the buffer materials to their surroundings. However, it can be advantageous to retain buffer-canister gaps to lower the peak buffer temperature.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.152-160
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• 2008

Since wall system apartment used the shear wall as main lateral resistance member, installation of openings which causing section loss of walls may cause significant problem to structure. Also, there are few studies for inducing coupling beam or slabs which are occurred by installing openings. Therefore, this study planned isolated 2-story shear walls which are reduced three half-scale specimen to find out walls behavior characteristic. The test results showed that strength reduction caused by loss of effective section of walls and different result of stiffness and energy dissipation regarding to the coupling beam and coupling slabs.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.34-45
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• 2017

Cyclic loading tests for a total of nine test specimens were performed to evaluate the seismic performance of the exposed steel column-base plate connections. From the tests, flexural strength, deformation capacity, energy dissipation, and initial stiffness were investigated. The primary test parameters were the thickness of base-plate, embedment length of anchor bolt, the presence of hook, and rib plates. Test results showed that flexural behavior of column base-plate connection was substantially affected by the base-plate thickness, embedment length and the number of anchor bolts. On the other hand, the effect of rib plates on the increase of the flexural performance was not observed. The initial stiffness of the test specimens was about 15% of the flexural stiffness obtained by assuming that the support is fixed. As a result, even if the exposed column base-plate is designed in accordance with current design recommendations, in case that bond strength between concrete and the anchor bolts is not sufficient, the base-plate connection showed an unaccceptable load-displacement behavior.