• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.485-498
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• 2020

Non-ductile detailing of Reinforced Concrete (RC) frames may lead to structural failure when the structure is subjected to earthquake response. These designs are generally encountered in older RC frames constructed prior to the introduction of the ductility aspect. The failure observed in the beam-column joints (BCJs) and accompanied by excessive column damage. This work examines the seismic performance and failure mode of non-ductile designed RC columns and exterior BCJs. The design was based on the actual building in Tainan City, Taiwan, that collapsed due to the 2016 Meinong earthquake. Hence, an experimental investigation using cyclic testing was performed on two columns and two BCJ specimens scaled down to 50%. The experiment resulted in a poor response in both specimens. Excessive cracks and their propagation due to the incursion of the lateral loads could be observed close to the top and bottom of the specimens. Joint shear failure appeared in the joints. The ductility of the member was below the desired value of 4. This is the minimum number required to survive an earthquake with a similar magnitude to that of El Centro. The evidence provides an understanding of the seismic failure of poorly detailed RC frame structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.97-107
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• 2021

A comprehensive study on seismic performance of wood frame building in hilly regions is presented. Specifically, seismic fragility assessment of a typical wood frame building at various locations of the northeast region of India are demonstrated. A three-dimensional simplified model of the wood frame building is developed with due consideration to nonlinear behaviour of shear walls under lateral loads. In doing so, a trilinear model having improved capability to capture the force-deformation behaviour of shear walls including the strength degradation at higher deformations is proposed. The improved capability of the proposed model to capture the force-deformation behaviour of shear wall is validated by comparing with the existing experimental results. The structural demand values are obtained from nonlinear time history analysis (NLTHA) of the three-dimensional wood frame model considering the effect of uncertainty due to record to record variation of ground motions and structural parameters as well. The ground motion bins necessary for NLTHA are prepared based on the identified hazard level from probabilistic seismic hazard analysis of the considered locations. The maximum likelihood estimates of the lognormal fragility parameters are obtained from the observed failure cases and the seismic fragilities corresponding to different locations are estimated accordingly. The results of the numerical study show that the wood frame constructions commonly found in the region are likely to suffer minor cracking or damage in the shear walls under the earthquake occurrence corresponding to the estimated seismic hazard level; however, poses negligible risk against complete collapse of such structures.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.307-314
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• 2020

High-rise buildings with vertical setback are widely used in practice. From the field investigation of the past earthquakes, it was found that such kind of vertically irregular high-rise building structures easily suffer severe damage during strong earthquakes. This paper presents an extensive study on the earthquake responses of moment-resisting frame structures (MFS) popularly applied in high-rise buildings with vertical setback. Four groups of MFS are designed, including three groups of structures with vertical setback and one group of structures with the lateral stiffness varying along the building height but without vertical setback. The numerical models of the structures are established, and the time history analysis of the structures under different levels of earthquakes is conducted. The earthquake responses of the structures are compared. The influence of the ratio between the horizontal setback dimension and the previous plan dimension, the eccentricity of setback, and the position where the setback occurs on the seismic performance of structures is studied. The rationality of the provisions for the structures with vertical setback specified in the current design codes is checked by the findings from this study.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.139-151
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• 2021

By the end of December 2020, an earthquake with Mw about 6.4 hit Sisak-Moslavina County, Croatia. The town of Petrinja was the most affected region with major power outage and many buildings collapsed. The damage also affected neighbor countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia. As a light of this devastating event, a deformation map due to this earthquake could be generated by using remote sensing imagery from Sentinel-1 SAR data. InSAR could be used as deformation map but still affected with noise factor that could problematize the exact deformation value for further research. Thus in this study, 17 SAR data from Sentinel-1 satellite is used in order to generate the multi-temporal interferometry utilize Stanford Method for Persistent Scatterers (StaMPS). Mean deformation map that has been compensated from error factors such as atmospheric, topographic, temporal, and baseline errors are generated. Okada model then applied to the mean deformation result to generate the modeled earthquake, resulting the deformation is mostly dominated by strike-slip with 3 meter deformation as right lateral strike-slip. The Okada sources are having 11.63 km in length, 2.45 km in width, and 5.46 km in depth with the dip angle are about 84.47° and strike angle are about 142.88° from the north direction. The results from this modeling can be used as learning material to understand the seismic activity in the latest 2020 Petrinja, Croatia Earthquake.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.6
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• pp.819-830
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• 2021

To evaluate the performance of concrete load bearing walls in a structure under horizontal loads after being exposed to real fire, two steps were followed. In the first step, an experimental study was performed on the thermo-mechanical properties of concrete after heating to temperatures of 200-1000℃ with the purpose of determining the residual mechanical properties after cooling. The temperature was increased in line with natural fire curve in an electric furnace. The peak temperature was maintained for a period of 1.5 hour and then allowed to cool gradually in air at room temperature. All specimens were made from calcareous aggregate to be used for determining the residual properties: compressive strength, static and dynamic elasticity modulus by means of UPV test, including the mass loss. The concrete residual compressive strength and elastic modulus values were compared with those calculated from Eurocode and other analytical models from other studies, and were found to be satisfactory. In the second step, experimental analysis results were then implemented into structural numerical analysis to predict the post-fire load-bearing capacity response of the walls under vertical and horizontal loads. The parameters considered in this analysis were the effective height, the thickness of the wall, various support conditions and the residual strength of concrete. The results indicate that fire damage does not significantly affect the lateral capacity and stiffness of reinforced walls for temperature fires up to 400℃.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.239-246
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• 2021

The immunological sperm separation method is economical compared to the existing sorting method, and it is promising for the development of new technologies by reducing sperm damage. Wholemom (WM) is a sex-regulating protein that comprises on immunoglobulin G coupled with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) that responds to surface proteins derived from the Y chromosome in cattle. Y sperms are restricted in motility as the WM aggregates them, and the magnet could separate the non-aggregated cells. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of WM treatment on the characteristics of bull sperm. After treating sperm with WM and incubation for 6 h, the motility parameters including total motility, progressive motility, velocity average path, velocity straight line, amplitude of lateral head displacement, and linearity were significantly higher in the WM treatment group than in the control group (p < 0.05). Sperm viability and acrosome reaction rates were similar in both groups during each incubation period (p > 0.05). In conclusion, the immunological sperm sexing procedure using a monoclonal antibody conjugated with MNPs did not affect the characteristics of bull sperm. This study suggests that compared to other techniques, the immunological method for sperm sexing could classify sperm quickly and efficiently without the use of expensive equipment.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.483-500
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• 2022

Cold-formed steel wall panels sheathed with gypsum plasterboard have shown superior thermal and structural performance in fire. Recent damage caused by fire events in Australia has increased the need for accurate fire resistance ratings of wall systems used in low- and mid-rise construction. Past fire research has mostly focused on light gauge steel framed (LSF) walls under uniform axial compression and LSF floors under pure bending. However, in reality, LSF wall studs may be subject to both compression and bending actions due to eccentric loading at the wall to-roof or wall-to-floor connections. In order to investigate the fire resistance of LSF walls under the effects of these loading eccentricities, four full-scale standard fire tests were conducted on 3 m × 3 m LSF wall specimens lined with two 16 mm gypsum plasterboards under different combinations of axial compression and lateral load ratios. The findings show that the loading eccentricity can adversely affect the fire resistance level of the LSF wall depending on the magnitude of the eccentricity, the resultant compressive stresses in the hot and cold flanges of the wall studs caused by combined loading and the temperatures of the hot and cold flanges of the studs. Structural fire designers should consider the effects of loading eccentricity in the design of LSF walls to eliminate their potential failures in fire.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.503-515
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• 2022

Global or partial damage to a structure due to the failure of gravity or lateral load-bearing elements is called progressive collapse. In the present study, the alternate load path (ALP) method introduced by GSA and UFC 4-023-03 guidelines is used to evaluate the progressive collapse in special steel moment-resisting frame (SMRF) buildings. It was assumed that the progressive collapse is due to the earthquake force and its effects after the removal of the elements still remain on the structures. Therefore, nonlinear dynamic time history analysis employing 7 earthquake records is used to investigate this phenomenon. Internal and external column removal scenarios are investigated and the stiffness of the connections is changed from semi-rigid to rigid. The results of the analysis performed in the OpenSees program show that the loss of the bearing capacity of an exterior column due to a seismic event and the occurrence of progressive collapse can increase the inter-story drift of the structure with semi-rigid connections by more than 50% and make the structure unable to satisfy the life safety performance level. Furthermore, connection stiffness severely affects the redistribution of forces and moments in the adjacent elements of the removed column.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.523-540
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• 2023

The failure of slope can cause remarkable damage to either human life or infrastructures. Stabilizing piles are widely utilized to reinforce slope as a slip-resistance structure. The workability of pile-stabilized slopes is affected by various parameters. In this study, the performance of earth slope reinforced with piles and the behavior of piles under static load, by shear reduction strength method using the finite difference software (FLAC^3D) has been investigated. Parametric studies were conducted to investigate the role of pile length (L), different pile distances from each other (S/D), pile head conditions (free and fixed head condition), the effect of sand density (loose, medium, and high-density soil) on the pile behavior, and the performance of pile-stabilized slopes. The performance of the stabilized slopes was analyzed by evaluating the factor of safety, lateral displacement and bending moment of piles, and critical slip mechanism. The results depict that as L increased and S/D reduced, the performance of slopes stabilized with pile gets better by raising the soil density. The greater the amount of bending moment at the shallow depths of the pile in the fixed pile head indicates the effect of the inertial force due to the structure on the pile performance.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.46-51
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• 2022

The piercing process of creating holes in sheet metals for mechanical fastening generates high shear force. Real-time monitoring technology could predict tool damage and product defects due to this severe condition, but there are few applications for piercing high-strength aluminum. In this study, we analyzed the load signal to predict the punch's wear level during the process with a piezoelectric sensor installed piercing tool. Experiments were conducted on Al6061 T6 with a thickness of 3.0 mm using piercing punches whose edge angle was controlled by reflecting the wear level. The piercing load increases proportionally with the level of tool wear. For example, the maximum piercing load of the wear-shaped punch with the tip angle controlled at 6 degrees increased by 14% compared to the normal-shaped punch under the typical clearance of 6.7% of the aluminum piercing tool. In addition, the tool wear level increased compression during the down-stroke, which is caused by lateral force due to the decrease in the diameter of pierced holes. Our study showed the predictability of the wear level of punches through the recognition of changes in characteristic elements of the load signal during the piercing process.