• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.355-374
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• 2006

Thin walled steel bridge-piers/columns are vulnerable to damage, when subjected to earthquake excitations. Local buckling, global buckling or interaction between local and global buckling usually is the cause of this damage, which results in significant strength reduction of the member. In this study new innovative design concepts, "thin-walled corrugated steel columns" and "thin-walled cellular steel columns" are presented, which allow the column to undergo large plastic deformations without significant strength reduction; hence dissipate energy under cyclic loading. It is shown that, compared with the conventional designs, circular and stiffened box sections, these new innovative concepts might results in cost-effective designs, with improved buckling and ductility properties. Using a finite element model, that takes the non-linear material properties into consideration, it is shown that the corrugations will act like longitudinal stiffeners that are supporting each other, thus improving the buckling behavior and allowing for reduction of the overall wall thickness of the column.

• Textile Coloration and Finishing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.54-62
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• 1989

The woven fabric composed of nylon 6 filaments was treated with aqueous solutions (20, 30, 40, 50, 60%) of formic acid at 3$0^{\circ}C$ for 10 minutes under unrestrained condition, and the shrinkage behavior and some kinds of properties were examined. The shrinkages of the constituent yarns and fabric were increased with formic acid concentration, but they were lower than that of the original filaments because of fabric-structural factors. And the shrinkage of the warp was lower than that of the weft because of the residual stress from weaving process. By the restraint forces such as fabric-structural factors and residual stress, the constituent filaments were damaged partially at 60% of formic acid concentration and the degree of damage on the warp was greater than on the weft. And though the fabric count were increased overall, the spacing between the warps was decreased prior to the weft and eliminated nearly at 60% of formic acid concentration. The thickness, tensile strength, elongation, and handle value of fabric were increased overall with formic acid concentration excepting that the tensile strength for both the warp and weft directions and the elongation for the warp direction were decreased instead by the damage of yarns. But the crease recovery was decreased except the case of the weft direction at 60% of formic acid concentration.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.191-198
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• 2015

It is important to accurately predict structural responses to external excitations such as typhoons and earthquakes when designing structures for serviceability. One of the key procedures to predict reliable vibration responses is to evaluate accurate structural dynamic properties using finite element (FE) models, which properly represent the realistic behavior of buildings. In the case of historic masonry buildings, structural damage could also be caused by ambient vibrations or impacts. Therefore, the preservation plans of historic buildings for low-level vibrations or impacts should be provided by analyzing structural damages within serviceability levels. For this purpose, it is required to provide FE model construction and response analysis methods verified with field measurement data. In this research, long-term field measurement was performed for a cathedral and its dynamic properties were evaluated using measured data. Then, the model was calibrated based on the measured dynamic properties and an overall construction method for the masonry cathedral was proposed. Using the measured accelerations, the vibrations of the belfry were analyzed using the calibrated FE model and finally, the FE model for the cathedral was verified by comparing the measured accelerations with the modeled results.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.463-469
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• 2004

This paper discusses 2D lattice models of beams for simulating the fracture of brittle materials. A simulation of an experiment on a connote beam subjected to bending, in which two overlapping cracks occur, is used to study the effect of individual beam characteristics and different arrangements of the beams in the overall lattice. It was found that my regular orientation of the beams influences the resulting crack patterns. Methods to implement a wide range of poisson's ratios are also developed, the use of the lattice to study arbitrary micro-structures is outlined The crack pattern that n obtained with lattice m in good agreement with the experimental results. Also, numerical simulations of the tests were performed by means of a lattice model, and non-integer dimensions were measured on the predicted lattice damage patterns.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.249-257
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• 1996

Dynamic Analysis of Precast Concrete Large Panel Structures with Horizontal Joints The damage in precast large panel structures subjected to destructive earthquakes is generally localized in the joints. Particularly, the horizontal joints influence on the stability and integrity of the overall structure. In this research a dynamic analysis was carried out by the macro model that idealized the horizontal joints as inelastic-nonlinear spring systems. It is capable of simulating the behavior of precast concrete structures using the mathematical model. As a result of the dynamic parametric study for the case of 0.12g peak base accelerations, it is found that all joints behave elastically for sliding and opening and that all forces are well distributed without excessive local concentration on my horizontal joints.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.393-398
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• 2007

Fatigue Behavior of a GFRP bridge deck consisting of rectangular unit modules is studied by an experimental method. The experiment focuses on how the damage in the transverse direction influence the overall behavior of the deck It is proposed filling the space in each module with a soft foam. Using the recent experimental data, the fatigue behavior is discussed. If the space of the deck is filled with the foam, the fatigue life of the deck was increased about 1,000 times for the same level of the stress variation as the reference deck not filled.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.810-819
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• 2007

Usually the status of a bridge is determined by its structural capability and material strength. Consequently a lot of researchers have studied the failure, the fatigue, and the deterioration of the structure in terms of the structural function of a bridge. However, the overall performance of a bridge may be affected simply by the damage of one of its components. Therefore this study utilized a systematic classification and statistical analysis based on the existing bridge inspection data collected in Taiwan to reach the following goals: (1) assess the performance distribution and deterioration rate for bearing and expansion joint of bridge; (2) find out the right time to do the preventive and essential maintenance for the component of bridge with an empirical method, and to decide what time and which component of a bridge will receive preventive maintenance or regular maintenance.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.339-353
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• 2023

The primary objective of the current study is to optimize and evaluate the seismic performance of steel momentresisting frame (MRF) structures considering soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects. The structural optimization is implemented in the context of performance-based design in accordance with FEMA-350 at different confidence levels from 50% to 90% by taking into account fixed- and flexible-base conditions using an efficient metaheuristic algorithm. Nonlinear response-history analysis (NRHA) is conducted to evaluate the seismic response of structures, and the beam-on-nonlinear Winkler foundation (BNWF) model is used to simulate the soil-foundation interaction under the MRFs. The seismic performance of optimally designed fixed- and flexible-base steel MRFs are compared in terms of overall damage index, seismic collapse safety, and interstory drift ratios at different performance levels. Two illustrative examples of 6- and 12-story steel MRFs are presented. The results show that the consideration of SSI in the optimization process of 6- and 12-story steel MRFs results in an increase of 1.0 to 9.0 % and 0.5 to 5.0 % in structural weight and a slight decrease in structural seismic safety at different confidence levels.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.197-214
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• 2010

The paper presents a methodology for developing earthquake damage and loss scenarios for urban areas, as well as its application to two cities located in Mediterranean countries, Grevena (in Greece) and D$\ddot{u}$zce (in Turkey), that were struck by strong earthquakes in the recent past. After compiling the building inventory in each city, fragility curves were derived using a hybrid approach previously developed by the authors, and a series of seismic scenarios were derived based on microzonation studies that were specifically conducted for each city (see companion paper by Pitilakis et al.). The results obtained in terms of damage estimates, required restoration times and the associated costs are presented in a GIS environment. It is deemed that both the results obtained, and the overall methodology and tools developed, contribute towards the enhancement of seismic safety in the Mediterranean area (as well as other earthquake-prone regions), while they constitute a useful pre-earthquake decision-making tool for local authorities.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.319-344
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• 2020

Inverse analysis of non-linear reinforced concrete bridge pier using recursive Gaussian filtering for in-situ condition assessment is the main theme of this work. For this purpose, minimum variance unbiased estimation using unscented sigma points is adopted here. The uniqueness of this inverse analysis lies in its approach for strain based updating of engineering demand parameters, where appropriate bound and constrained conditions are introduced to ensure numerical stability and convergence. In this analysis, seismic input is also identified, which is an added advantage for the structures having no dedicated sensors for earthquake measurement. First, the proposed strategy is tested with a simulated example whose hysteretic properties are obtained from the slow-cyclic test of a frame to investigate its efficiency and accuracy. Finally, the experimental test data of a full-scale bridge pier is used to study its in-situ condition in terms of Park & Ang damage index. Overall the study shows the ability of the augmented minimum variance unbiased estimation based recursive time-marching algorithm for non-linear system identification with the aim to estimate the engineering damage parameters that are the fundamental information necessary for any future decision making for retrofitting/rehabilitation.