• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.385-403
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• 2015

This paper presents the status improvement of an old damaged deck type rural road steel truss bridge through the modal parametric study after partial retrofitting. The dynamic and static tests on bridge were carried out as in damaged state and after partial retrofitting. The dynamic testing on the steel bridge was carried out using accelerometers under similar environmental conditions with same speed of the moving vehicle. The comparison of the modal parameters i.e., frequency, mode shape mode shape curvature, modal strain energy, along with the deflection parameter are studied with respect to structural analytical model parameters. The status up gradation for the upper and downstream truss obtained was different due to differential level of damage in the bridge. Also after retrofitting the structural elemental behavior obtained was not same as desired. The damage level obtained through static tests carried out using total station indicated further retrofitting requirement.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 1998

To predict effects of seismic isolation, seismic isolation bearings were applied to the Wolsong reactor building and the analytical study was performed. For this study, the Wolsong reactor building was modeled using lumped masses and beam elements. Design Basis Earthquake with a ground acceleration of 0.2g was applied. And then, the behavior of the isolated structure was compared with that of the unisolated structure. The horizontal response acceleration at the top of the unisolated reactor building was 0.99g, while that of the isolated one was 0.14g(15% damping) and the acceleration response along the height of the structure was constant. The maximum displacement of the unisolated structure was 8.3mm, while that of the isolated structure was 66mm. The application of isolation bearings on the reactor building reduces seismic loads but increases the displacement of the structure on a large scale. Therefore, when using isolation bearings, the reactor building and BOP should be located on a common mat to cover the large displcement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.487-498
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• 2024

Steel moment resisting frames (MRFs) typically have inter-story drift concentrations at lower stories during earthquakes as found from previous research. Hinged walls (HWs) can be used as structural strengthening components to force the MRFs deform uniformly along the building height. However, large moment demands are often observed on HWs and make the design of HWs non-economical. This paper proposes a method to reduce the moment demand on HWs using a ductile connection system between the MRFs and the HWs. The ductile connection system is designed with a yield strength and energy dissipation capacity, for the purpose of limiting the seismic forces transferred to the HWs and dissipating seismic energy. Nonlinear time history analyses were performed using 10 far-filed earthquakes at maximum considered earthquake level. The analysis results show that the proposed ductile connection system can reduce: (1) seismic moment demands in the HWs; (2) floor accelerations; (3) the connection force between HWs and MRFs.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.217-236
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• 2024

The objective of this paper was to discuss the seismic performance of hybrid FRP-steel reinforced concrete shear wall with replaceable friction dampers at the feet of the wall. The hysteretic characteristics of five wall specimens were studied by pseudo-static loading tests. The results showed that the damage of the specimens was concentrated on the friction dampers, and the energy consumption capacity was increased while making up for the defect of low ductility of FRP reinforced wall specimens. And the repairability of the wall after earthquake was improved. Finally, a calculation method of initial stiffness of shear wall with replaceable dampers was proposed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.317-329
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• 2024

Recent earthquakes have demonstrated that even when the beams and columns in a reinforced concrete frame remain intact, the integrity of the whole structure is undermined if the joint where these members connect fails. A good seismic performance of reinforced concrete frames depends on their ability to absorb seismic energy through inelastic deformations and to avoid a sudden development of collapse mechanism in event of a strong earthquake shaking. The primary objective of this investigation is to move the plastic hinge away from the beam-column joint region and hence reducing the damage to the joint region. In this research, the seismic performance of exterior beam-column joints with four types of confinement in joint region and inclined bars from column to beam is investigated experimentally. Control specimens without inclined bars and four types of confinement Square Hoop, Square Spiral, Circular Hoop and Circular Spiral were tested along with inclined bars were tested. Seismic performance was determined via load-deflection response, ductility, stiffness, energy dissipation, strain of beam reinforcement and crack pattern. Out of the four specimens with inclined bars, seismic performance of joint with Square Spiral confinement gave the best performance in terms of all parameters.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.625-639
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• 2019

The concept of the combined seismic and energy retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings was examined in this paper through a number of case studies conducted on model buildings (simulating buildings of the '60s-'80s in southern Europe) constructed according to outdated design standards. Specifically, seismic and thermal analyses have been conducted prior to and after the application of selected retrofitting schemes, in order to quantify the positive effect that retrofitting could provide to RC buildings both in terms of their structural and energy performance. Advanced materials, namely the textile reinforced mortars (TRM), were used for providing seismic retrofitting by means of jacketing of masonry infills in RC frames. Moreover, following the application of the TRM jackets, thermal insulation materials were simultaneously provided to the RC building envelope, exploiting the fresh mortar used to bind the TRM jackets. In addition to the externally applied insulation material, all the fenestration elements (windows and doors) were replaced with new high energy efficiency ones. Afterwards, an economic measure, namely the expected annual loss (EAL) was used to evaluate the efficiency of each retrofitting method, but also to assess whether the combined seismic and energy retrofitting is economically feasible. From the results of this preliminary study, it was concluded that the selected seismic retrofitting technique can indeed enhance significantly the structural behaviour of an existing RC building and lower its EAL related to earthquake risks. Finally, it was found that the combined seismic and energy upgrading is economically more efficient than a sole energy or seismic retrofitting scenario for seismic areas of south Europe.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2018

Earthquake disasters that exceed the design criteria can pose significant threats to nuclear facilities. Seismic probabilistic safety assessment(PSA) is a probabilistic way to quantify such risks. Accordingly, seismic PSA has been applied to domestic and overseas nuclear power plants, and the safety of nuclear power plants was evaluated and prepared against earthquake hazards. However, there were few examples where seismic PSA was applied in case of a research reactor with a relatively small size compared to nuclear power plants. Therefore, in this study, seismic PSA technique was applied to actually completed research reactor to analyze its safety. Also, based on these results, the optimization study on the seismic capacity of the system constituting the research reactor was carried out. As a result, the possibility of damage to the core caused by the earthquake hazard was quantified in the research reactor and its safety was confirmed. The optimization study showed that the optimal seismic capacity distribution was obtained to ensure maximum safety at a low cost compared with the current design. These results, in the future, can expect to be used as a quantitative indicator to effectively improve the safety of the research reactor with respect to earthquakes.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.41-54
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• 1999

Because of relatively heavy dead weight of concrete itself and unavoidable heat of massive concrete in bridge piers, circular hollow columns are widely used in Korean highway bridges. Since the occurrence of 1995 Kobe earthquake, there have been much concerns about seismic design for various infrastructures, inclusive of bridge structures. It is, however, understood that there are not much research works for nonlinear behavior of circular hollow columns subjected to eqrthquake motions. The objective of this experimental research is to investigate nonlinear behavior of circular hollow reinforced concrete bridge piers under the quasi-static cyclic load, and then to enhance their ductility by strengthening the plastic hinge region with glassfiber sheets. Particularly for this test, constant 10 cyclic loads have been repeatedly actuated to investigate the magnitude of strength degradation for the displacement ductility factor. Important test parameters are seismic design, confinement steel ratio, axial force and load pattern. It is observed from quasi-static tests for 7 bridge piers that the seismically designed columns and the retrofitted columns show better performance than the nonseismically designed colums, i.e. about 20% higher for energy dissipation capacity and about 70% higher for curvatures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.365-381
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• 2013

In this paper, a numerical simulation study was conducted on the seismic behavior and ductility demand of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems with partially self-centering hysteresis. Unlike fully self-centering systems, partially self-centering systems display noticeable residual displacement after unloading is completed. Such partially self-centering behavior has been observed in a number of recently researched self-centering structural systems with energy dissipation devices. It is thus of interest to examine the seismic performance such as ductility demand of partially self-centering systems. In this study, a modified flag-shaped hysteresis model with residual displacement is proposed to represent the hysteretic behavior of partially self-centering structural systems. A parametric study considering the effect of variations in post-yield stiffness ratio, energy dissipation coefficient, and residual displacement ratio on the displacement ductility demand of partially self-centering systems was conducted using a suite of 192 scaled ground motions. The results of this parametric study reveal that increasing the post-yield stiffness, energy dissipation coefficient or residual displacement ratio of the partially self-centering systems generally leads to reduced ductility demand, especially for systems with lower yield strength.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.385-398
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• 2011

This paper discusses the applicability of Acoustic Emission (AE) to assess the damage in reinforced concrete (RC) structures subjected to complex dynamic loadings such as those induced by earthquakes. The AE signals recorded during this type of event can be complicated due to the arbitrary and random nature of seismicity and the fact that the signals are highly contaminated by many spurious sources of noise. This paper demonstrates that by properly filtering the AE signals, a very good correlation can be found between AE and damage on the RC structure. The basic experimental data used for this research are the results of fourteen seismic simulations conducted with a shake table on an RC slab supported on four steel columns. The AE signals were recorded by several low-frequency piezoelectric sensors located on the bottom surface of the slab. The evolution of damage under increasing values of peak acceleration applied to the shake table was monitored in terms of AE and dissipated plastic strain energy. A strong correlation was found between the energy dissipated by the concrete through plastic deformations and the AE energy calculated after properly filtering the signals. For this reason, a procedure is proposed to analyze the AE measured in a RC structure during a seismic event so that it can be used for damage assessment.