• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.177-195
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• 2018

Reinforced concrete buildings in a seismically active area can be designed as DCM (medium ductility) or DCH (high ductility) class according to the regulations of Eurocode 8. In this paper, two RC buildings, one with a wall structural system and the other with a frame system, previously designed for DCM and DCH ductility, were analysed by using incremental dynamic analysis in order to study differences in the behaviour of structures between these ductility classes, especially the failure mechanism and ultimate collapse acceleration. Despite the fact that a higher behaviour factor of DCH structures influences lower seismic resistance, in comparison to DCM structures, a strict application of the design and detailing rules of Eurocode 8 in analysed examples caused that the seismic resistance of both frames does not significantly differ. The conclusions were derived for two buildings and do not necessarily apply to other RC structures. Further analysis could make a valuable contribution to the analysis of the behaviour of such buildings and decide between two ductility classes in everyday building design.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.191-199
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• 2016

Piloti-type building is one of typical vertical atypical buildings. These buildings can fail by weak-story or flexible-story mechanism on the first story. They should be designed by taking into account the special seismic load, but those less than six stories are not required to confirm the seismic performance from structural engineers in Korea. For this reason, small-size pilloti-type RC buildings need to be checked for seismic performance. Based on this background, this study performed nonlinear dynamic analysis using the PERFORM-3D for small-size pilloti-type RC buildings and assessed their seismic performance. Examples are two through four story buildings with and without walls in the first story. The walls and columns in the first story satisfied the target performance in the basic of flexural behavior due to quite a large size and reinforcement. However, wall shear demands exceed shear strength in some buildings. When designed for KBC2009, wall shear strength exceed shear demand in some buildings, but still does not in others. Consequently, wall shear must be carefully checked in both existing and new small-size pilloti-type RC buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.349-357
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• 2017

The design of reinforced concrete structures strongly depends on the value of the compression concrete strength used for the structural components. Given the uncertainties involved on the materials quality provided by concrete manufacturers, in the construction stage, these components may be either over or under-reinforced respect to the nominal condition. If the structure is under reinforced, and the deficit on safety level is not as large to require the structure demolition, someone should assume the consequences, and pay for the under standard condition by means of a penalty. If the structure is over reinforced, and other failure modes are not induced, the builder may receive a bonus, as a consequence of the higher, although unrequested, building resistance. The change on the building safety level is even more critical when the structure is under a seismic environment. In this research, a reliability-based criteria, including the consideration of expected losses, is proposed for bonification/penalization, when there are moderated differences between the supplied and specified reinforced concrete strength for the buildings. The formulation is applied to two hypothetical, with regular structural type, 3 and 10 levels reinforced concrete buildings, located on the soft soil zone of Mexico City. They were designed under the current Mexican code regulations, and their responses for typical spectral pseudoaccelerations, combined with their respective occurrence probabilities, are used to calculate the building failure probability. The results are aimed at providing objective basis to start a negotiation towards a satisfactory agreement between the involved parts. The main contribution resides on the explicit consideration of potential losses, including the building and contents losses and the business interruption due to the reconstruction period.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.391-399
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• 2017

This study investigates the effects of soft story, short columns, heavy overhangs, pounding, and construction and workmanship quality parameters on seismic response of reinforced concrete buildings through nonlinear static and dynamic procedures. The accounted parameters are selected for their common use in rapid screening of RC buildings. The 4- and 7-story buildings designed according to pre-modern codes are used to reflect majority of the existing building stock. The relative penalty scores are employed in this study to evaluate relative importance of certain irregularities in the existing rapid seismic assessment procedures. Comparison of relative scores for the irregularities considered in this study show that the overall trend is similar. The relatively small differences may be accounted for regional construction practices. It is concluded that initial-phase seismic assessment procedures based on architectural features yield in somewhat similar results independent of their bases. However, the differences in the scores emphasize the proper selection of the method based on the regional structure characteristics.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1111-1133
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• 2015

Rebar corrosion in concrete is one of the main causes of reduction of service life of reinforced concrete buildings. This paper presents the influence of rebar corrosion on the structural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings subjected to strong earthquake ground motion. Different levels of rebar corrosion scenarios were applied on a typical four story RC frame. The deteriorated conditions as a result of these scenarios include loss in cross-sectional area and loss of mechanical properties of the reinforcement bars, loss in bond strength, and loss in concrete strength and its modulus of elasticity. Dynamic analyses of the frame with different corrosion scenarios are performed with selected strong earthquake ground motion records. The influences of degradation in both concrete and reinforcement on structural behavior are investigated by comparing the various parameters of the frame under different corrosion scenarios with respect to each other. The results show that the progressive deterioration of the frame due to rebar corrosion causes serious structural behavior changes such as change in failure mode. The intensity, propagation time, and extensity of rebar corrosion have very important effects on the level of degradation of steel and concrete, as well as on the earthquake behavior of the structure.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.679-694
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• 2014

The selected carrier systems of reinforced concrete frame buildings are quite important on structural damages. In this study are examined comparatively nonlinear behaviours of reinforced concrete frames which having different stiffening members under a horizontal load. In that respect, the study consists of six parametric models. With this purpose, nonlinear structural analyses of reinforced concrete frames which having different stiffening members were carried out with LUSAS which uses the finite element method. Thus, some conclusions and recommendations to mitigate the damage of reinforced concrete buildings in the future designs are aimed to present. The obtained results revealed that in terms of performance, the x-shaped diagonal elements can be used as an option to shear walls. In addition, it was found that frame-2, frame-3 and frame-4 showed a better performance than traditional frame system (frame-1).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.483-503
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• 2016

This study aims to evaluate seismic performance of existing low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings by comparing their displacement capacities and displacement demands under selected ground motions experienced in Turkey as well as demand spectrum provided in 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code for design earthquake with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for soil class Z3. It should be noted that typical residential buildings are designed according to demand spectrum of 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. Three RC building sets as 2-, 4- and 7-story, are selected to represent reference low-and mid-rise buildings located in the high seismicity region of Turkey. The selected buildings are typical beam-column RC frame buildings with no shear walls. The outcomes of detailed field and archive investigation including approximately 500 real residential RC buildings established building models to reflect existing building stock. Total of 72 3-D building models are constructed from the reference buildings to include the effects of some properties such as structural irregularities, concrete strength, seismic codes, structural deficiencies, transverse reinforcement detailing, and number of story on seismic performance of low and mid-rise RC buildings. Capacity curves of building sets are obtained by nonlinear static analyses conducted in two principal directions, resulting in 144 models. The inelastic dynamic characteristics are represented by "equivalent" Single-Degree-of- Freedom (ESDOF) systems using obtained capacity curves of buildings. Nonlinear time history analysis is used to estimate displacement demands of representative building models idealized with (ESDOF) systems subjected to the selected ground motion records from past earthquakes in Turkey. The results show that the significant number of pre-modern code 4- and 7-story buildings exceeds LS performance level while the modern code 4- and 7-story buildings have better performances. The findings obviously indicate the existence of destructive earthquakes especially for 4- and 7-story buildings. Significant improvements in the performance of the buildings per modern code are also obvious in the study. Almost one third of pre-modern code buildings is exceeding LS level during records in the past earthquakes. This observation also supports the building damages experienced in the past earthquake events in Turkey.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.549-557
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• 2021

Nowadays, strengthening of buildings is an inclusive and effective field in civil engineering that is not only applicable to the buildings but also it can be developed for the bridges. Rehabilitation and strengthening of structures are highly recommended for the existing structures due to the alter in codes and provisions as well as buildings' use change. Extensive surveys have been conducted in this field in the world that propose wide variety of methods for strengthening of structures. In recent years, more specific researches have been carried out that present novel materials for rehabilitation beside proposing methods and performing techniques. In the current study, a novel technique for developing the bending capacity of reinforced concrete beams to enhance their performance as well as rehabilitating and reforming the performance of reinforced concrete beams with nonstandard lap splices, has been proposed. In this method, a post-tensioned concrete layer is added to the side face of the concrete beams built in 1:1 scale. Results reveals that addition of the post-tensioned layer enhances the beams' performance and covers their weaknesses. In this method, 18 reinforced concrete beams were prepared for the bending test which were subjected to the four-point pushover test after they were reinforced. The testing process ended when the samples reached complete failure status. Results show that the performance and flexural capacity of reinforced beams without lap splice is improved 22.7% compared to the samples without the post-tensioned layer, while it is enhanced up to at least 80% compared to the reinforced beams with nonstandard lap splice. Furthermore, the location of plastic hinges formation was transformed from the beam's mid-span to the 1/3 of span's end and the beam's cracking pattern was significantly improved.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.211-223
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• 2008

A number of studies have suggested that the use of high ductile and high shear materials, such as Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) and High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites (HPFRCC), significantly enhances the shear capacity of structural elements, even with/without shear reinforcements. The present study emphasizes the development of a nonlinear model of shear behaviour of a HPFRCC panel for application to the seismic retrofit of reinforced concrete buildings. To model the shear behaviour of HPFRCC panels, the original Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT) for conventional reinforced concrete panels has been newly revised for reinforced HPFRCC panels, and is referred to here as the HPFRCC-MCFT model. A series of experiments was conducted to assess the shear behaviour of HPFRCC panels subjected to pure shear, and the proposed shear model has been verified through an experiment involving panel elements under pure shear. The proposed shear model of a HPFRCC panel has been applied to the prediction of seismic retrofitted reinforced concrete buildings with in-filled HPFRCC panels. In retrofitted structures, the in-filled HPFRCC element is regarded as a shear spring element of a low-rise shear wall ignoring the flexural response, and reinforced concrete elements for beam or beam-column member are modelled by a finite plastic hinge zone model. An experimental study of reinforced concrete frames with in-filled HPFRCC panels was also carried out and the analysis model was verified with correlation studies of experimental results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1435-1452
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• 2015

The performance of masonry infilled frames during the past earthquakes shows that the infill panels play a major role as earthquake-resistant elements. Experimental observations regarding the influence of infill panels on increasing stiffness and strength of reinforced concrete structures reveal that such panels can be used in order to strengthen reinforced concrete frames. The present study examines the influence of infill panels on seismic behavior of RC frame structures. For this purpose, several low- and mid-rise RC frames (two-, four-, seven-, and ten story) were numerically investigated. Reinforced masonry infill panels were then placed within the frames and the models were subjected to several nonlinear incremental static and dynamic analyses. In order to determine the acceptance criteria and modeling parameters for frames as well as reinforced masonry panels, the Iranian Guideline for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Masonry Buildings (Issue No. 376), the Iranian Guideline for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Structures (Issue No. 360) and FEMA Guidelines (FEMA 273 and 356) were used. The results of analyses showed that the use of reinforced masonry infill panels in RC frame structures can have beneficial effects on structural performance. It was confirmed that the use of masonry infill panels results in an increment in strength and stiffness of the framed buildings, followed by a reduction in displacement demand for the structural systems.