• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.195-219
• /
• 2015

A partial (hybrid) seismic isolation scheme for precast girder bridges in the form of a "buffer-gap-elastomeric bearings" system has been endorsed in the literature as an efficient seismic design system. However, no guides exist to detail an optimal gap size for different configurations. A numerical study is established herein for different scenarios according to Euro code seismic requirements in order to develop guidelines for the selection of optimal buffer-gap arrangements for various design cases. Various schemes are hence designed for ductile and limited ductility behavior of the bridge piers for different seismic demand levels. Seven real ground records are selected to perform incremental dynamic analysis of the bridges up to failure. Bridges with typical short and high piers are studied; and different values of initial gaps at piers are also investigated varying from a zero gap (i.e., fully locked) condition up to an initial gap at piers that is three quarters the gap left at abutments. Among the main conclusions is that the as-built initial gaps at piers (and especially large gap sizes that are ${\geq}1/2$ as-built gaps at abutments) do not practically reduce the seismic design demand and do not affect the reserve capacity of the bridge against failure for bridges featuring long piers, especially when these bridges are designed a priori for ductile behavior. To the contrary, the "buffer-gap-elastomeric bearings" system is more effective for the bridge schemes with short piers having a large difference between the stiffness of the bearings and that of their supporting (much stiffer) squat piers, particularly for designs with limited ductility. Such effectiveness is even amplified for the case of larger initial as-built gap sizes at piers.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.21-32
• /
• 1999

A ground motion resulting from the destructive earthquakes can subject reinforced concrete members to very large forces. The reinforced concrete shear walls are designed as earthquake-resistant members of building structure in order to prevent severe damage due to the ground motions. The current research activities on seismic behavior of reinforced concrete member under ground motions have been limited to the shaking table test or equivalent static cyclic test and the obtained results have been summarized and proposed for the seismic design retrofit of structural columns or shear walls. The present study predicted the seismic response and failure behavior of reinforced concrete shear wall subjected to base acceleration using the finite element method. A decrease in strength and stiffness, yielding of reinforcing bar, and repetition of crack closing and opening due to seismic load with cyclic nature are accompanied by the crack which is necessarily expected to take place in concrete member. In this study the nonlinear material models for concrete and reinforcing bar based on biaxial stress field and algorithm of dynamic analysis were combined to construct the analytical program using the finite element method. The analytical seismic response and failure behaviors of reinforced concrete shear wall subjected to several base accelerations were compared with reliable experimental result.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.503-515
• /
• 2022

This paper presents the development of seismic fragility curves for a precast reinforced concrete bridge instrumented with a structural health monitoring (SHM) system. The bridge is located near an active seismic fault in the Dominican Republic (DR) and provides the only access to several local communities in the aftermath of a potential damaging earthquake; moreover, the sample bridge was designed with outdated building codes and uses structural detailing not adequate for structures in seismic regions. The bridge was instrumented with an SHM system to extract information about its state of structural integrity and estimate its seismic performance. The data obtained from the SHM system is integrated with structural models to develop a set of fragility curves to be used as a quantitative measure of the expected damage; the fragility curves provide an estimate of the probability that the structure will exceed different damage limit states as a function of an earthquake intensity measure. To obtain the fragility curves a digital twin of the bridge is developed combining a computational finite element model and the information extracted from the SHM system. The digital twin is used as a response prediction tool that minimizes modeling uncertainty, significantly improving the predicting capability of the model and the accuracy of the fragility curves. The digital twin was used to perform a nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) with selected ground motions that are consistent with the seismic fault and site characteristics. The fragility curves show that for the maximum expected acceleration (with a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years) the structure has a 62% probability of undergoing extensive damage. This is the first study presenting fragility curves for civil infrastructure in the DR and the proposed methodology can be extended to other structures to support disaster mitigation and post-disaster decision-making strategies.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.167-181
• /
• 2024

The soil-structure relative stiffness is a key factor affecting the seismic response of underground structures. It is of great significance to study the soil-structure relative stiffness for the soil-structure interaction and the seismic disaster reduction of subway stations. In this paper, the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of an inhomogeneous soft soil site under different buried depths which were obtained by a one-dimensional equivalent linearization site response analysis were used as the input parameters in a 2D finite element model. A visco-elasto-plastic constitutive model based on the Mohr-Coulomb shear failure criterion combined with stiffness degradation was used to describe the plastic behavior of soil. The damage plasticity model was used to simulate the plastic behavior of concrete. The horizontal and vertical relative stiffness ratios of soil and structure were defined to study the influence of relative stiffness on the seismic response of subway stations in inhomogeneous soft soil. It is found that the compression damage to the middle columns of a subway station with a higher relative stiffness ratio is more serious while the tensile damage is slighter under the same earthquake motion. The relative stiffness has a significant influence on ground surface deformation, ground acceleration, and station structure deformation. However, the effect of the relative stiffness on the deformation of the bottom slab of the subway station is small. The research results can provide a reference for seismic fortification of subway stations in the soft soil area.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.221-234
• /
• 2019

Today, many important concrete face rockfill dams (CFRDs) have been built on the world, and some of these important structures are located on the strong seismic regions. In this reason, examination and monitoring of these water construction's seismic behaviour is very important for the safety and future of these dams. In this study, the nonlinear seismic behaviour of Ilısu CFR dam which was built in Turkey in 2017, is investigated for various reservoir water heights taking into account 1995 Kobe near-fault and far-fault ground motions. Three dimensional (3D) finite difference model of the dam is created using the FLAC3D software that is based on the finite difference method. The most suitable mesh range for the 3D model is chosen to achieve the realistic numerical results. Mohr-Coulomb nonlinear material model is used for the rockfill materials and foundation in the seismic analyses. Moreover, Drucker-Prager nonlinear material model is considered for the concrete slab to represent the nonlinearity of the concrete. The dam body, foundation and concrete slab constantly interact during the lifetime of the CFRDs. Therefore, the special interface elements are defined between the dam body-concrete slab and dam body-foundation due to represent the interaction condition in the 3D model. Free field boundary condition that was used rarely for the nonlinear seismic analyses, is considered for the lateral boundaries of the model. In addition, quiet artificial boundary condition that is special boundary condition for the rigid foundation in the earthquake analyses, is used for the bottom of the foundation. The hysteric damping coefficients are separately calculated for all of the materials. These special damping values is defined to the FLAC3D software using the special fish functions to capture the effects of the variation of the modulus and damping ratio with the dynamic shear-strain magnitude. Total 4 different reservoir water heights are taken into account in the seismic analyses. These water heights are empty reservoir, 50 m, 100 m and 130 m (full reservoir), respectively. In the nonlinear seismic analyses, near-fault and far-fault ground motions of 1995 Kobe earthquake are used. According to the numerical analyses, horizontal displacements, vertical displacements and principal stresses for 4 various reservoir water heights are evaluated in detail. Moreover, these results are compared for the near-fault and far-faults earthquakes. The nonlinear seismic analysis results indicate that as the reservoir height increases, the nonlinear seismic behaviour of the dam clearly changes. Each water height has different seismic effects on the earthquake behaviour of Ilısu CFR dam. In addition, it is obviously seen that near-fault earthquakes and far field earthquakes create different nonlinear seismic damages on the nonlinear earthquake behaviour of the dam.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.233-250
• /
• 2014

In this paper, a three dimensional soil-structure interaction (SSI) is numerically simulated using finite element method in order to analyse the foundation moments in annular raft of tall slender chimney structures incorporating the effect of openings in the structure and the effect of soil flexibility, when the structure-soil system is subjected to El Centro (1940) ground motion in time domain. The transient dynamic analysis is carried out using LS-DYNA software. The linear ground response analysis program ProShake has been adopted for obtaining the ground level excitation for different soil conditions, given the rock level excitation. The radial and tangential bending moments of annular raft foundation obtained from this SSI analysis have been compared with those obtained from conventional method according to the Indian standard code of practice, IS 11089:1984. It is observed that tangential and radial moments increase with the increase in flexibility of soil. The analysis results show that the natural frequency of chimney decreases with increase in supporting soil flexibility. Structural responses increase when the openings in the structure are also considered. The purpose of this paper is to propose the need for an accurate evaluation of the soilstructure interaction forces which govern the structural response.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.50 no.1
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2014

In this paper, overstrength, ductility and response modification factors are calculated for frames braced with a different type of buckling restrained braces, called reduced yielding segment BRB (Buckling Restrained Brace) in which the length of its yielding part is reduced and placed in one end of the brace element in comparison with conventional BRBs. Forthermore, these factors are calculated for ordinary BRBF and the results are compared. In this regard incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method is used for studying 17 records of the most known earthquakes happened in the world. To do that, the considered buildings have different stories and two bracing configurations: diagonal and inverted V chevron, the most ordinary configurations of BRBFs. Static pushover analysis, nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis and linear dynamic analysis have been performed using OpenSees software. Considering the results, it can be seen that, overstrength, ductility and response modification factors of this type of BRBF(Buckling Restrained Braced Frame) is greater than those of conventional types and it shows better seismic performance and also eliminates some of conventional BRBF's disadvantages such as low post-yield stiffness.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.159-169
• /
• 2020

Acceleration amplification factors, which are variables used in the seismic design of power facilities installed inside substation structures, are presented in the seismic design standards of the United States (US), Japan, and Korea. Unlike the coefficients presented in the design standards of the US and Japan, those presented in domestic design standards can be obtained only by performing dynamic analysis when the substation structure has more than four floors. Because most substation structures in Korea have 4-5 stories, the existing acceleration amplification factor is insufficient to be applied to actual substation structures. To suggest an acceleration amplification factor suitable for domestic substation structure types, the acceleration amplification factor was evaluated for seven representative substation structures. The acceleration amplification factors were evaluated by constructing in-structure response spectra based on a study of far-field and near-fault earthquakes. In general, the acceleration amplification coefficients α_J and α_A according to the US and Japan seismic design criteria tend to be overestimated compared with the acceleration amplification factors obtained through dynamic analysis based on the study of near-fault and far-field earthquakes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.68 no.6
• /
• pp.747-760
• /
• 2018

In the present study, a methodology for developing fragilities of arch concrete dams to assess their performance against seismic hazards is introduced. Firstly, the probability risk and fragility curves are presented, followed by implementation and representation of the way this method is used. Amirkabir arch concrete dam was subjected to non-linear dynamic analyses. A modified three dimensional rotating smeared crack model was used to take the nonlinear behavior of mass concrete into account. The proposed model considers major characteristics of mass concrete. These characteristics are pre-softening behavior, softening initiation criteria, fracture energy conservation, suitable damping mechanism and strain rate effect. In the present analysis, complete fluid-structure interaction is included to account for appropriate fluid compressibility and absorptive reservoir boundary conditions. In this study, the Amirkabir arch concrete dam is subjected to a set of 8 three-component earthquakes each scaled to 10 increasing intensity levels. Using proposed nonlinear smeared crack model, nonlinear analysis is performed where the structure is subjected to a large set of scaled and un-scaled ground motions and the maximum responses are extracted for each one and plotted. Based on the results, fragility curves were plotted according to various and possible damages indexes. Discrete damage probabilities were calculated using statistical methods for each considered performance level and incremental nonlinear analysis. Then, fragility curves were constructed based on the lognormal distribution assumption. Two damage indexes were introduced and compared to one another. The results indicate that the dam has a proper stability under earthquake conditions at MCE level. Moreover, displacement damages index is more conservative and impractical in the fragility analysis than tensional damage index.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.289-301
• /
• 2023

Developing a competent soil-bridge interaction model for the seismic analysis of piled foundation bridges is of utmost importance for investigating the seismic response and assessing fragility of these lifeline structures. To this end, ground motion histories are deemed necessary at various depths along the piles supporting the bridge. This may be effectively accomplished through time history analysis of a free-field standalone soil column extending from bedrock level to ground surface subjected to an input bedrock motion at its base. A one-dimensional site/ground response analysis (vide one-directional shear wave propagation through the soil column) is hence conducted in the present research accounting for the nonlinear hysteretic behavior of the soil stratum encompassing the bridge piled foundation. Two homogeneous soil profiles atop of bedrock have been considered for comparison purposes, namely, loose and dense sand. Analysis of the standalone soil column has been performed under a set of ten selected actual bedrock ground motions adopting a nonlinear time domain approach in an incremental dynamic analysis framework. Amplified retrieved PGA and maximum soil shear strains have been generally observed at various depths of the soil column when moving away from bedrock towards ground surface especially at large hazards associated with high (input) PGA values assigned at bedrock. This has been accompanied, however, by some attenuation of the amplified PGA values at shallower depths and at ground surface especially for the loose sand soil and particularly for cases with higher seismic hazards associated with large scaling factors of bedrock records.