• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.455-480
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• 2015

In the last decade, displacement-based (DB) methods have become established design procedures for reinforced concrete (RC) structures. They use strain and displacement measures as seismic performance control parameters. As for other simplified seismic design methods, it is of great interest to prove if they are usually conservative in respect to more refined, nonlinear, time history analyses, and can estimate design parameters with acceptable accuracy. In this paper, the current Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) procedure is evaluated for designing simple single degree of freedom (SDOF) systems with specific reference to simply supported RC bridge piers. Using different formulations proposed in literature for the equivalent viscous damping and spectrum reduction factor, a parametric study is carried out on a comprehensive set of SDOF systems, and an average error chart of the method is derived allowing prediction of the expected error for an ample range of design cases. Following the chart, it can be observed that, for the design of actual RC bridge piers, underestimation errors of the DDBD method are very low, while the overestimation range of the simplified displacement-based procedure is strongly dependent on design ductility.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.473-494
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• 2014

Progressive collapse, which is referred to as the collapse of the entire building under local damages, is a common failure mode happened by earthquakes. The collapse process highly depends on the whole structural system. Since, asymmetry of the building plan leads to the local damage concentration; it may intensify the progressive collapse mechanism of asymmetric buildings. In this research the progressive collapse of regular and irregular 6-story RC ordinary moment resisting frame buildings are studied in the presence of the earthquake loads. Collapse process and collapse propagation are investigated using nonlinear time history analyses (NLTHA) in buildings with 5%, 15% and 25% mass asymmetry with respect to the number of collapsed hinges and story drifts criteria. Results show that increasing the value of mass eccentricity makes the asymmetric buildings become unstable earlier and in the early stages with lower number of the collapsed hinges. So, with increasing the mass eccentricity in building, instability and collapse of the entire building occurs earlier, with lower potential of the progressive collapse. It is also demonstrated that with increasing the mass asymmetry the decreasing trend of the number of collapsed beam and column hinges is approximately similar to the decreasing trend in the average story drifts of the mass centers and stiff edges. So, as an alternative to a much difficult-to-calculate local response parameter of the number of collapsed hinges, the story drift, as a global response parameter, measures the potential of progressive collapse more easily.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.39-60
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• 2010

In Turkey, majority of industrial facilities are composed of precast buildings. However, precast buildings have suffered extensive damage during Kocaeli and Duzce (1999) and Adana-Ceyhan (1998) earthquakes. Therefore, in this study, fragilities of existing building stock and damage probabilities of precast buildings were studied. For this purpose, building inventories were prepared and variation of structural parameters was determined by investigating the design project of 65 precast buildings constructed in Denizli, Turkey. Twelve analysis models which reflect the stiffness, strength and ductility properties of building inventory were constructed. After the definition of strain based displacement limits and corresponding damage states for buildings, displacement demands were calculated by using non linear time history analysis. During the analyses 360 strong ground motion records were used. Exceedence ratios of concerned damage limits was calculated by checking the displacement demands and then PGV based fragility curves were constructed. Efficiency of strength, stiffness and ductility properties of existing precast buildings were investigated by comparing the fragility curves. The results have shown that the most effective parameters that govern the damage probabilities of precast buildings are stiffness and ductility. It was also stated that the results of fragility analysis and damage and failure observations performed after Kocaeli and Duzce Earthquakes are compatible.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.271-282
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• 2019

Knowing the response of buildings to earthquakes is very important in order to ensure that a structure is able to withstand a given level of ground shaking. Thus, nonlinear dynamic earthquake engineering analyses are unavoidable and are preferable procedure in the seismic assessment of buildings. In order to estimate seismic performance on the basis of the hazard at the site where the structure is located, the selection of appropriate seismic input is known to be a critical step while performing this kind of analysis. In this paper, seismic analysis is performed for a four-story reinforced concrete ISPRA frame structure which is designed according to Eurocode 8 (EC8). A total of 90 different earthquake scenarios were selected, 30 for each of three target spectrums, EC8 spectrum, Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS), and Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS). The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the average maximum Inter-story Drift Ratio (IDR) for each target spectrum. Time history analysis for every earthquake record was obtained and, as a result, IDR as the main measure of damage were presented in order to compare with defined performance levels of reinforced concrete bare frames.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.367-392
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• 2020

The specific characteristics of near-field earthquake records can lead to different dynamic responses of bridges compared to far-field records. However, the effect of near-field strong ground motion has often been neglected in the seismic performance assessment of the bridges. Furthermore, damage to horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges in the past earthquakes has intensified the potential of seismic vulnerability of these structures due to their distinctive dynamic behavior. Based on the nonlinear time history analyses in OpenSEES, this article, assesses the effects of near-field versus far-field earthquakes on the seismic performance of horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges by accounting the vertical component of the earthquake records. Analytical seismic fragility curves have been derived thru considering uncertainties in the earthquake records, material and geometric properties of bridges. The findings indicate that near-field effects reasonably increase the seismic vulnerability in this bridge sub-class. The results pave the way for future regional risk assessments regarding the importance of either including or excluding near-field effects on the seismic performance of horizontally curved bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.201-213
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• 2021

Contrast to the conventional jointed bridge design, integral abutment bridges (IABs) offer some marked advantages like reduced maintenance and enhanced service life of the structure due to elimination of joints in the deck and monolithic construction practices. However, the force transfer mechanism during seismic and thermal movements is a topic of interest owing to rigid connection between superstructure and substructure (piers and abutments). This study attempts to model an existing IAB by including the abutment backfill interaction and soil-foundation interaction effects using Winkler foundation assumption to determine its seismic response. Keeping in view the significance of abutment behavior in an IAB, the probability of damage to the abutment is evaluated using fragility function. Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) approach is used in this regard, wherein, nonlinear time history analyses are conducted on the numerical model using a selected suite of ground motions with increasing intensities until damage to abutment. It is concluded from the fragility analysis results that for a MCE level earthquake in the location of integral bridge, the probability of complete damage to the abutment is minimal.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.5
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• pp.431-450
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• 2023

In this study, it is intended to perform nonlinear time-history analyses of nuclear power plant structures (NPP) under near-fault earthquakes showing directivity pulse and fling-step characteristics. Simulation procedures based on cycloidal pulse and far-fault ground motions are also used to simulate near-fault motions showing forward-directivity and fling-step characteristics and the structural responses are compared with those of the recorded near-fault ground motions. Because it is aimed to determine specifically the pulse type characteristics of near-fault ground motions on NPPs, all the ground motions are normalized to have a PGA of 0.3 g. Depending on the obtained results it can be underlined that although near-fault ground motion has the potential to cause damage mostly on structural systems having larger periods, it may also have noticeable effects on the responses of rigid structures, like NPP containment buildings. On the other hand, simulated near-fault motions can help us to get an insight into the near-fault mechanism as well as an approximate visualization of the structural responses under near-fault earthquakes.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.79-90
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• 2023

Existing reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings have seismic vulnerabilities because of seismically deficient details. In particular, since cumulative damage caused by successive earthquakes causes serious damage, repair/retrofit rehabilitation studies for successive earthquakes are needed. This study investigates the repair effect of fiber-reinforced polymer jacketing system for the seismically-vulnerable building structures under successive earthquakes. The repair modeling method developed and validated from the previous study was implemented to the building models. Additionally, the main parameters of the FRP jacketing system were selected as the number of FRP layers associated with the confinement effects and the installation location. To define the repair effects of the FRP jacketing system with the main parameters, this study conducted nonlinear time-history analyses for the building structural models with the various repairing scenarios. Based on this investigation, the repair effects of the damaged building structures were significantly affected by the damage levels induced from the mainshocks regardless of the retrofit scenarios.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.1-14
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• 2007

Optimal design method of nonlinear damping system for seismic response control of adjacent structures is studied in this paper. The objective functions of the optimal design are defined by structural response and total amount of the dampers. In order to obtain a solution minimizing two mutually conflicting objective functions simultaneously, multi-objective optimization technique based on genetic algorithm is adopted. In addition, stochastic linearization method is embedded into the multi-objective framework to efficiently estimate the seismic responses of the adjacent structures interconnected by nonlinear hysteretic dampers without performing nonlinear time-history analyses. As a numerical example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, 20-story and 10-story buildings are considered and MR dampers of which hysteretic behaviors vary with the magnitude of the input voltage are considered as nonlinear hysteretic damper interconnecting two adjacent buildings. The proposed approach can provide the optimal number and capacities of the MR dampers, which turned out to be more economical than the uniform distribution system while maintaining similar control performance. The proposed damper system is verified to show more stable performance in terms of the pounding probability between two adjacent buildings. The applicability of the proposed method to the design problem for optimally placing semi-active control system is examined as well.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.187-195
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• 2015

The gas explosions in offshore installations are known to be very severe according to its geometry and environmental conditions such as leak locations and wind directions, and a dynamic response of structures due to blast loads depends on the load profile. Therefore, a parametric study has to be conducted to investigate the effects of the dynamic response of structural members subjected to various types of load shapes. To do so, a series of CFD analyses was performed using a full-scale FPSO topside model including detail parts of pipes and equipments, and the time history data of the blast loads at monitor points and panels were obtained by the analyses. In this paper, we focus on a structural dynamic response subjected to blast loads changing the magnitude of positive/negative phase pressure and time duration. From the results of linear/nonlinear transient analyses using single degree of freedom(SDOF) and multi-degree-of freedom(MDOF) systems, it was observed that dynamic responses of structures were significantly influenced by the magnitude of positive and negative phase pressures and negative time duration.