• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.217-243
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• 2016

The linear and nonlinear seismic responses of steel buildings with perimeter moment resisting frames and welded connections (WC) are estimated and compared with those of buildings with post-tensioned connections (PC). Two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) structural representations of the buildings as well as global and local response parameters are considered. The seismic responses and structural damage of steel buildings with PC may be significantly smaller than those of the buildings with typical WC. The reasons for this are that the PC buildings dissipate more hysteretic energy and attract smaller inertia forces. The response reduction is larger for global than for local response parameters. The reduction may significantly vary from one structural representation to another. One of the main reasons for this is that the energy dissipation characteristics are quite different for the 2D and 3D models. In addition, in the case of the 3D models, the contribution of each horizontal component to the axial load on an specific column may be in phase each other during some intervals of time, but for some others they may be out of phase. It is not possible to observe this effect on the 2D structural formulation. The implication of this is that 3D structural representation should be used while estimating the effect of the PC on the structural response. Thus, steel frames with post-tensioned bolted connections are a viable option in high seismicity areas due to the fact that brittle failure is prevented and also because of their reduced response and self-centering capacity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.27-47
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• 2015

In this study, the accuracy and reliability of fully nonlinear method against equivalent linear method for dynamic analysis of soil-structure interaction is investigated comparing the predicted results of both numerical procedures with the results of experimental shaking table tests. An enhanced numerical soil-structure model has been developed which treats the behaviour of the soil and the structure with equal rigour. The soil-structural model comprises a 15 storey structural model resting on a soft soil inside a laminar soil container. The structural model was analysed under three different conditions: (i) fixed base model performing conventional time history dynamic analysis, (ii) flexible base model (considering full soil-structure interaction) conducting equivalent linear dynamic analysis, and (iii) flexible base model performing fully nonlinear dynamic analysis. The results of the above mentioned three cases in terms of lateral storey deflections and inter-storey drifts are determined and compared with the experimental results of shaking table tests. Comparing the experimental results with the numerical analysis predictions, it is noted that equivalent linear method of dynamic analysis underestimates the inelastic seismic response of mid-rise moment resisting building frames resting on soft soils in comparison to the fully nonlinear dynamic analysis method. Thus, inelastic design procedure, using equivalent linear method, cannot adequately guarantee the structural safety for mid-rise building frames resting on soft soils. However, results obtained from the fully nonlinear method of analysis fit the experimental results reasonably well. Therefore, this method is recommended to be used by practicing engineers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.995-1016
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• 2015

The reliability or the safety index is a measure of how far a structure is from the state of collapse. Also it defined as the probability that a structure will not fail in its lifetime. Having any increase in the reliability index is typically interpreted as increasing in the safety of structures. On the other hand most of researchers acknowledged that one of the most effective means of increasing both the reliability and the safety of structures is to increase the structural redundancy. They also acknowledged that increasing the number of vertical seismic framing will make structural system more reliable and safer against stochastic events such as earthquakes. In this paper the reliability index and the behavior factor of a numbers of three dimensional RC moment resisting frames with the same story area, equal lateral resistant as well as different redundancy has been evaluated numerically using both deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Study on the reliability index and the behavior factor in the case study models of this research illustrated that the changes of these two factors do not have always the same manner due to the increasing of the structural redundancy. In some cases, structures with larger reliability index have smaller behavior factor. Also assuming the same ultimate lateral resistance of structures which causes an increase to a certain level of redundancy can enhance behavior factor of structures. However any further increase in the redundancy of that certain level might decrease the behavior factor. Furthermore, the results of this study illustrate that concerning any increase in the structural redundancy will make the reliability index of structure to be larger.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.113-139
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• 2016

The nonlinear seismic responses of steel buildings with perimeter moment resisting frames (PMRF) and interior gravity frames (IGF) are estimated, modeling the interior connections first as perfectly pinned (PPC), and then as partially restrained (PRC). Two 3D steel building models, twenty strong motions and three levels of the PRC rigidity, which are represented by the Richard Model and the Beam Line Theory, are considered. The RUAUMOKO Computer Program is used for the required time history nonlinear dynamic analysis. The responses can be significantly reduced when interior connections are considered as PRC, confirming what observed in experimental investigations. The reduction significantly varies with the strong motion, story, model, structural deformation, response parameter, and location of the structural element. The reduction is larger for global than for local response parameters; average reductions larger than 30% are observed for shears and displacements while they are about 20% for bending moments. The reduction is much larger for medium- than for low-rise buildings indicating a considerable influence of the structural complexity. It can be concluded that, the effect of the dissipated energy at PRC should not be neglected. Even for connections with relative small stiffness, which are usually idealized as PPC, the reduction can be significant. Thus, PRC can be used at IGF of steel buildings with PMRF to get more economical construction, to reduce the seismic response and to make steel building more seismic load tolerant. Much more research is needed to consider other aspects of the problem to reach more general conclusions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.571-583
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• 2017

A kind of accordion-web RBS connection, "Tubular Web RBS (TW-RBS)" connection is proposed in this research. TW-RBS is made by replacing a part of web with a tube at the desirable location of the beam plastic hinge. This paper presents first a numerical study under cyclic load using ABAQUS finite element software. A test specimen is used for calibration and comparison of numerical results. Obtained results indicated that TW-RBS would reduce contribution of the beam web to the whole moment strength and creates a ductile fuse far from components of the beam-to-column connection. Besides, TW-RBS connection can increase story drift capacity up to 9% in the case of shallow beams which is much more than those stipulated by the current seismic codes. Furthermore, the tubular web like corrugated sheet can improve both the out-of-plane stiffness of the beam longitudinal axis and the flange stability condition due to the smaller width to thickness ratio of the beam flange in the plastic hinge region. Thus, the tubular web in the plastic hinge region improves lateral-torsional buckling stability of the beam as just local buckling of the beam flange at the center of the reduced section was observed during the tests. Also change of direction of strain in arc shape of the tubular web section is smaller than the accordion webs with sharp corners therefore the tubular web provides a better condition in terms of low-cycle fatigue than other accordion web with sharp corners.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.215-236
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• 2014

The flexural behaviour of steel beams significantly affects the structural performance of the steel frame structures. In particular, the flexural overstrength (namely the ratio between the maximum bending moment and the plastic bending strength) that steel beams may experience is the key parameter affecting the seismic design of non-dissipative members in moment resisting frames. The aim of this study is to present a new formulation of flexural overstrength factor for steel beams by means of artificial neural network (NN). To achieve this purpose, a total of 141 experimental data samples from available literature have been collected in order to cover different cross-sectional typologies, namely I-H sections, rectangular and square hollow sections (RHS-SHS). Thus, two different data sets for I-H and RHS-SHS steel beams were formed. Nine critical prediction parameters were selected for the former while eight parameters were considered for the latter. These input variables used for the development of the prediction models are representative of the geometric properties of the sections, the mechanical properties of the material and the shear length of the steel beams. The prediction performance of the proposed NN model was also compared with the results obtained using an existing formulation derived from the gene expression modeling. The analysis of the results indicated that the proposed formulation provided a more reliable and accurate prediction capability of beam overstrength.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.141-159
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• 2016

Commonly in steel frames, steel beam and concrete slab are connected together by shear keys to work as a unit member which is called composite beam. When a composite beam is subjected to positive bending, flexural strength and stiffness of the beam can be increased due to "composite action". At the same time despite these advantages, composite action increases the strain at the beam bottom flange and it might affect beam plastic rotation capacity. This paper presents results of study on the rotation capacity of composite beam connected to Rectangular Hollow Section (RHS) column in the steel moment resisting frame buildings. Due to out-of-plane deformation of column flange, moment transfer efficiency of web connection is reduced and this results in reduction of beam plastic rotation capacity. In order to investigate the effects of width-to-thickness ratio (B/t) of RHS column on the rotation capacity of composite beam, cyclic loading tests were conducted on three full scale beam-to-column subassemblies. Detailed study on the different steel beam damages and concrete slab damages are presented. Experimental data showed the importance of this parameter of RHS column on the seismic behavior of composite beams. It is found that occurrence of severe concrete bearing crush at the face of RHS column of specimen with smaller width-to-thickness ratio resulted in considerable reduction on the rate of strain increase in the bottom flange. This behavior resulted in considerable improvement of rotation capacity of this specimen compared with composite and even bare steel beam connected to the RHS column with larger width-to-thickness ratio.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.15 no.6 s.67
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• pp.701-709
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• 2003

The paper presented the seismic performance of T-stiffener moment connections for use in steel moment-resisting frames. The connections were strengthened by welding the vertical and horizontal clement of the T-stiffener to the beam flange and column f1ange. Finite clement analysis and experiments were conducted to determine the behavior of T-stiffener-reinforced connections. The results of the finite element analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the T-stiffener, whose horizontal element lengthened to mitigate local stress concentrations of the beam flange on the horizontal stiffener. Full-scale specimens were also tested cyclically to study hysteresis behavior. The main parameters used were the ratio of the T-stiffener to beam strength and the shape of the horizontal element. As the length of the horizontal element increased, the deformation capacity of the connections enhanced. Likewise, all specimens behaved according to the Ramberg-Osgood curve and showed stable hysteresis behavior.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.351-359
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• 2015

In order to exactly evaluate the seismic collapse capacity of a structure, probabilistic approach is required by considering uncertainties related to its structural properties and ground motion. Regardless of the types of uncertainties, they influence on the seismic response of a structures and their effects are required to be estimated. An incremental dynamic analysis(IDA) is useful to investigate uncertainty-propagation due to ground motion. In this study, a 3-story steel moment-resisting frame is selected for a prototype frame and analyzed using the IDA. The uncertainty-propagation is assessed with categorized parameters representing epistemic uncertainties, such as the seismic weight, the inherent damping, the yield strength, and the elastic modulus. To do this, the influence of the uncertainty-propagation to the seismic collapse capacity of the prototype frame is probabilistically evaluated using the incremental dynamic analyses based on the Monte-Carlo simulation sampling with the Latin hypercube method. Of various parameters related to epistemic uncertainty-propagation, the inherent damping is investigated to be the most influential parameter on the seismic collapse capacity of the prototype frame.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.33-39
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• 2002

Response Modification Factor(R-factor) approach is currently implemented to reflect inelastic ductile behavior of the structures and to reduce elastic spectral demands from earthquakes to the design level. However R factors were set empirically and simply based on the professional committee consensus on observed performance of building structures during past earthquakes. Consequently some major shortcomings linked to the current R factor approach have been pointed out. Using reinforced concrete intermediate moment-resisting frames(RC IMRFs), an analytical procedure is presented in this paper to establish R factor rationally. To this end, analytical R values were evaluated based on N2 Method and compared with the values recommended by IBC 2000. Overall, the analytical results correlated well with the code values. However the results also revealed that R factor might strongly depend on the system fundamental period. As evidenced by the interstory drift index(IDI) analysis results of this study, current R-factor based(or, Life Safety based) design tends to fail in fulfilling other implicit and hopeful performance objectives such as immediate Occupancy and Collapse Prevention. Performance based design(PBD) appears to be a promising approach to meet the multi level seismic performance objectives assigned to the building structures of nowadays.