• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1127-1146
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• 2015

The excitation angle or angle of incidence is the angle in which the horizontal seismic components are applied with respect to the principal structural axes during a time history analysis. In this study, numerical simulations and parametric studies are performed for the investigation of the effect of the angle of seismic incidence on the response of adjacent buildings, which may experience structural pounding during strong earthquakes due to insufficient or no separation distance between them. A specially developed software application has been used that implements a simple and efficient methodology, according to which buildings are modelled in three dimensions and potential impacts are simulated using a novel impact model that takes into account the arbitrary location of impacts and the geometry at the point of impact. Two typical multi-storey buildings and a set of earthquake records have been used in the performed analyses. The results of the conducted parametric studies reveal that it is very important to consider the arbitrary direction of the ground motion with respect to the structural axes of the simulated buildings, especially during pounding, since, in many cases, the detrimental effects of pounding become more pronounced for an excitation angle different from the commonly examined 0 or 90 degrees.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.957-979
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• 2015

The present paper investigates the influence of the orientation of the ground-motion reference axes, the seismic incident angle and the seismic intensity level on the inelastic response of asymmetric reinforced concrete buildings. A single storey asymmetric building is analyzed by nonlinear dynamic analyses under twenty bi-directional ground motions. The analyses are performed for many angles of incidence and four seismic intensity levels. Moreover three different pairs of the horizontal accelerograms corresponding to the input seismic motion are considered: a) the recorded accelerograms, b) the corresponding uncorrelated accelerograms, and c) the completely correlated accelerograms. The nonlinear response is evaluated by the overall structural damage index. The results of this study demonstrate that the inelastic seismic response depends on the orientation of the ground-motion reference axes, since the three individual pairs of accelerograms corresponding to the same ground motion (recorded, uncorrelated and completely correlated) can cause different structural damage level for the same incident angle. Furthermore, the use of the recorded accelerograms as seismic input does not always lead to the critical case of study. It is also shown that there is not a particular seismic incident angle or range of angles that leads to the maximum values of damage index regardless of the seismic intensity level or the ground-motion reference axes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.389-403
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• 2021

Skewed bridges, being irregular structures with complicated dynamic behavior, are more susceptible to earthquake damage. Reliable seismic-resistant design of skewed bridges can be achieved by accurate determination of nonlinear seismic demands. However, the effect of geometric characteristics on the response modification factor (R-factor) is not accounted for in bridge design practices. This study attempts to investigate the effects of changes in the number of spans, skew angle and bearing stiffness on R-factor values and to assess the seismic fragility of skewed bridges. Results indicated that changes in the skew angle had no significant effect on R-factor values which were in consonance with code-prescribed R values. Also, unlike the increase in the number of spans that resulted in a decrease in the R-factor, the increase in bearing stiffness led to higher R-factor values. Findings of the fragility analysis implied that although the increase in the number of spans, as well as the increase in the skew angle, led to a higher failure probability, greater values of bearing stiffness reduced the collapse probability. For practicing design engineers, it is recommended that maximum demands on substructure elements to be calculated when the excitation angle is applied along the principal axes of skewed bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.5
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• pp.575-589
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• 2018

It is well known that the incidence angle of seismic excitation has an influence on the structural response of buildings, and this effect can be more significant in the case of near-fault signals. However, current seismic codes do not include detailed requirements regarding the direction of application of the seismic action and they have only recently introduced specific provisions about near-fault earthquakes. Thus, engineers have the task of evaluating all the relevant directions or the most critical conditions case by case, in order to avoid underestimating structural demand. To facilitate the identification of the most critical incidence angle, this paper presents a procedure which makes use of a two-degree of freedom model for representing a building. The proposed procedure makes it possible to avoid the extensive computational effort of multiple dynamic analyses with varying angles of incidence of ground motion excitation, which is required if a spatial multi-degree of freedom model is used for representing a building. The procedure is validated through the analysis of two case studies consisting of an eight- and a six-storey reinforced concrete frame building, selected as representative of existing structures located in Italy. A set of 124 near-fault ground motion records oriented along 8 incidence angles, varying from 0 to 180 degrees, with increments of 22.5 degrees, is used to excite the structures. Comparisons between the results obtained with detailed models of the two structures and the proposed procedure are used to show the accuracy of the latter in the prediction of the most critical angle of seismic incidence.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.55-71
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• 2018

This paper investigates the role of the masonry infills on the correlation between widely used earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) and the damage state of 3D R/C buildings taking into account the orientation of the seismic input. For the purposes of the investigation an extensive parametric study is conducted using 60 R/C buildings with different heights, structural systems and masonry infills' distributions. The results reveal that the correlation between the IMs and the seismic damage can be strongly affected by the masonry infills' distribution, depending on the special characteristics of the structural system, the number of stories and the incident angle.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.39-50
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• 2017

Displacement response and corresponding maximum response energy of structures are key parameters to assess the dynamic effect or even more destructive structural damage of the structures. By employing them, this research has compared the structural responses of jacket supported offshore wind turbine (OWT) subjected to seismic excitations apprehending earthquake incidence, when (a) soil-structure interaction (SSI) has been ignored and (b) SSI has been considered. The effect of earthquakes under arbitrary angle of excitation on the OWT has been investigated by means of the energy based wavelet transformation method. Displacement based fragility analysis is then utilized to convey the probability of exceedance of the OWT at different soil site conditions. The results show that the uncertainty arises due to multi-component seismic excitations along with the diminution trend of shear wave velocity of soil and it tends to reduce the efficiency of the OWT to stand against the ground motions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.149-162
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• 2024

Aiming at the current research on the dynamic response analysis of the vehicle-bridge system under earthquake, which fails to comprehensively consider the impact of seismic wave incidence angles, terrain effects and soil-structure dynamic interaction on the bridge structure, this paper proposes a multi-point excitation input method that can consider the oblique incidence seismic P Waves based on the viscous-spring artificial boundary theory, and verifies the accuracy and feasibility of the input method. An overall numerical model of vehicle-bridge-soil foundation system in valley terrain during oblique incidence of seismic P-wave is established, and the effects of seismic wave incidence characteristics, terrain effects, soil-structure dynamic interactions, and vehicle speeds on the dynamic response of the bridge are analyzed. The research results indicate that with an increase in P wave incident angle, the vertical dynamic response of the bridge structure decreased while the horizontal dynamic response increased significantly. Traditional design methods which neglect multi-point excitation would lead to an unsafe structure. The dynamic response of the bridge structure significantly increases at the ridge while weakening at the valley. The dynamic response of bridge structures under earthquake action does not always increase with increasing train speed, but reaches a maximum value at a certain speed. Ignoring soil-structure dynamic interaction would reduce the vertical dynamic response of the bridge piers. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for the seismic design of vehicle-bridge systems in complex mountainous terrain under earthquake excitation.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.421-443
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• 2016

When conducting seismic assessment of an asymmetric building, it is essential to carry out three-dimensional analysis considering all the possible directions of seismic input. For this purpose, the author proposed a simplified procedure is to predict the largest peak seismic response of an asymmetric building subjected to horizontal bidirectional ground motion acting in an arbitrary angle of incidence in previous study. This simplified procedure has been applied to torsionally stiff (TS) asymmetric buildings with regular elevation. However, the suitability of this procedure to estimate the peak response of an asymmetric building with vertical irregularity, such as an asymmetric building with setback, has not been assessed. In this article, the pushover-based simplified procedure is applied to estimate the peak response of asymmetric buildings with bidirectional setback. Nonlinear dynamic (time-history) analysis of two six-storey asymmetric buildings with bidirectional setback and designed according to strong-column weak beam concept is carried out considering various directions of seismic input, and the results compared with those estimated by the proposed method. The largest peak displacement estimated by the simplified method agrees well with the envelope of the dynamic analysis response. The suitability assessment of the simplified procedure to analysed building models is made as well based on pushover analysis results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2017

Historical earthquakes have shown that successive seismic events may occur in regions of high seismicity. Such a sequence of earthquakes has the potential to increase the damage level of the structures, since any rehabilitation between the successive ground motions is practically impossible due to lack of time. Few studies about this issue can be found in literature, most of which focused their attention on the seismic response of SDOF systems or planar frame structures. The aim of the present study is to examine the impact of seismic sequences on the damage level of 3D multistorey R/C buildings with various structural systems. For the purposes of the above investigation a comprehensive assessment is conducted using three double-symmetric and three asymmetric in plan medium-rise R/C buildings, which are designed on the basis of the current seismic codes. The buildings are analyzed by nonlinear time response analysis using 80 bidirectional seismic sequences. In order to account for the variable orientation of the seismic motion, the two horizontal accelerograms of each earthquake record are applied along horizontal orthogonal axes forming 12 different angles with the structural axes. The assessment of the results revealed that successive ground motions can lead to significant increase of the structural damage compared to the damage caused by the corresponding single seismic events. Furthermore, the incident angle can radically alter the successive earthquake phenomenon depending on the special characteristics of the structure, the number of the sequential earthquakes, as well as the distance of the record from the fault.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.5
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• pp.591-604
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• 2022

A gravity wall combined with an anchoring lattice frame (a combined retaining structure) is adopted at a typical engineering site at Dali-Ruili Railway Line China. Where, the combined retaining structure supports a soil deposit covering on different inclined rock slopes. With an aim to investigate and compare the effects of inclined rock slopes on the response of combined retaining structure under seismic excitation, three groups of shaking table tests are conducted. The rock slopes are shaped as planar surfaces inclined at angles of 20°, 30°, and 40° with the horizontal, respectively. The shaking table tests are supplemented by dynamic numerical simulations. The results regarding the horizontal acceleration response, vertical acceleration response, permanent displacement mode, and axial anchor force are comparatively examined. The acceleration response is more susceptible to outer structural profile of combined retaining structure than to inclined angle of rock slope. The permanent displacement decreases when the inclined angle of the rock slope increases within a range of 20°-40°. A critical inclined angle of rock slope exists within a range of 20°-40°, and induces the largest axial anchor force in the combined retaining structure.