• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.467-476
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• 2018

The seismic vulnerability of skewed bridges had been observed in many past earthquakes. Researchers have found that the in-plane rotation of the girders was one of the main reasons for the vulnerability of these types of bridges. To date, not many experimental works have been done on this topic, especially those including pounding between adjacent structures. In this study, shake table tests were performed on a bridge-abutment system consisting of a straight, $30^{\circ}$, and $45^{\circ}$ bridge with and without considering pounding. Skewed bridges with the same fundamental frequency and those having the same girder mass as the straight bridge were studied. Under the loadings considered, skewed bridges with the same frequency as the straight tend to have smaller responses than those with the same mass. The average maximum bending moment developed in the piers of the $30^{\circ}$ bridge with the same mass as that of the straight when pounding was not considered was 1.6 times larger than when the frequencies were the same. It was also found that the NZTA recommendations for the seat lengths of skewed bridges could severely underestimate the relative displacements of these types of bridges in the transverse direction, especially when pounding occurs. In the worst case, the average transverse displacement of the $45^{\circ}$ bridge was about 2.6 times the longitudinal displacement of the straight, which was greatly over the limit suggested by the NZTA of 1.25 times.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.625-635
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• 2022

High-rise buildings (HRBs) are considered one of the most common structures nowadays due to the population growth, especially in crowded towns. The lack of land in crowded cities has led to the convergence of the HRBs and the absence of any gaps between them, especially in lands with weak soil (e.g., liquefaction-prone soil), but then during earthquakes, these structures may be exposed to the risk of collision between them due to the large increase in the horizontal displacements, which may be destructive in some cases to the one or both of these adjacent buildings. To evaluate methods of reducing the risk of collision between adjacent twin HRBs, this research investigates three vibration control methods to reduce the risk of collision due to five different earthquakes for the case of two adjacent reinforced concrete (RC) twin high-rise buildings of 15 floors height without gap distance between them, founded on raft foundation supported on piles inside a liquefaction-prone soil. Contact pounding elements between the two buildings (distributed at all floor levels and at the raft foundation level) are used to make the impact strength between the two buildings realistic. The mitigation methods investigated are the base isolation, the tuned mass damper (TMD) method (using traditional TMDs), and the pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD) method (using PTMDs connected between the two buildings). The results show that the PTMD method between the two adjacent RC twin high-rise buildings is more efficient than the other two methods in mitigating the earthquake-induced pounding risk.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.2
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• pp.293-304
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• 2021

Structural failure due to seismic pounding between two adjacent buildings is one of the major concerns in the context of structural damage. Pounding between adjacent structures is a commonly observed phenomenon during major earthquakes. When modelling the structural response, stiffness of impact spring elements is considered to be one of the most important parameters when the impact force during collision of adjacent buildings is calculated. Determining valid and realistic stiffness values is essential in numerical simulations of pounding forces between adjacent buildings in order to achieve reasonable results. Several impact model stiffness values have been presented by various researchers to simulate pounding forces between adjacent structures. These values were mathematically calculated or estimated. In this study, a linear spring impact element model is used to simulate the pounding forces between two adjacent structures. An experimental model reported in literature was adopted to investigate the effect of different impact element stiffness k on the force intensity and number of impacts simulated by Finite Element (FE) analysis. Several numerical analyses have been conducted using SAP2000 and the collected results were used for further mathematical evaluations. The results of this study concluded the major factors that may actualise the stiffness value for impact element models. The number of impacts and the maximum impact force were found to be the core concept for finding the optimal range of stiffness values. For the experimental model investigated, the range of optimal stiffness values has also been presented and discussed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.543-553
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• 2020

Past earthquakes experience shows that serious damage or collapse of buildings have dramatically accrued when sufficient separation distance has not been provided between two adjacent structures. The majority of past studies related to the pounding topic indicate that obtaining the gap size between two buildings is able to prevent collision and impact hazards during seismic excitations. Considering minimization of building collisions, some relationships have been suggested to determine the separation distance between adjacent buildings. Commonly, peak lateral displacement, fundamental period and natural damping as well as structural height of two adjacent buildings are numerically considered to determine the critical distance. Hence, the aim of present study is to focus on all mentioned parameters and also utilizing the main characteristic of earthquake record i.e. PGA to examine the lateral displacement of irregular structures close to each other and also estimate the sufficient separation distance between them. Increasing and decreasing the separation distance is inherently caused economical problems due to the land ownership from a legal perspective and pounding hazard as well. Therefore, a new equation is proposed to determine the optimum critical distance. The accuracy of the proposed formula is validated by different models and various earthquake records.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.346-353
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• 2002

The risk of bearing failure is evaluated through the seismic response analysis of a bridge considering the probabilistic characteristics of structural properties such as the mass of superstructure, the stiffness of pier, and the translational and rotational stiffness of the foundation as well as seismic loadings during the bridge service lift. The effect of pounding between adjacent vibration units on the risk of bearing failure is also investigated. The probabilistic characteristics of structural properties are obtained by the Monte Carlo simulations based on the probabilistic characteristics of basic random variables included in the structural properties. From the simulation results, the failure probability of fixed bearings attached on the abutment is found to be much higher than those placed on the piers. It is also found that the pounding effect significantly increases the failure probability of bearings. In the simply supported bridges, the risk of bearing failure increases as the number of bridge spans increase. Therefore, the failure probability of fixed bearing due to the effects of pounding phenomena and the number of bridge spans should be considered in the seismic desist of bearings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.415-448
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• 2014

A method is presented in this paper to analyze the dynamic response behavior of suspended building structures. The effect of semi-rigid connections that link suspended floors with their supporting structure on structural performance is investigated. The connections, like the restrains in non-structural suspended components, are designed as semi-rigid to avoid pounding and as energy dissipation components to reduce structural response. Parametric study is conducted to assess the dynamic characteristics of suspended building structures with varying connection stiffness and suspended mass ratios. Modal analysis is applied to identify the two distinct sets of vibration modes, pendulum and bearing, of a suspended building structure. The cumulative modal mass is discussed to ensure the accuracy in applying the method of response spectrum analysis by SRSS or CQC modal combination. Case studies indicate that a suspended building having semi-rigid connections and proper suspended mass ratios can avoid local pounding failure and reduce seismic response.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.729-734
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• 2002

The effect of several simplified methods of seismic analysis is estimated. The pounding/contacting of superstructures were considered in the multispan simply supported bridge and the multispan continuous bridge. Although nonlinear time history analysis is generally used for seismic analysis of bridges, many codes including AASHTO propose several simplified analysis methods. AASHTO, however, does not mention pounding. Therefore, the simplified methods may produce results that are different from those of nonlinear time history analysis. This study developed nonlinear analytical models of the two types of bridges mentioned. The models were then modified to the simplified linear models for simplified analysis. The results of the simplified methods were compared with those of nonlinear time history analysis. It was found that including of the pounding/contacting element in the simplified methods generated responses similar to those of the nonlinear time history analysis.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.173-184
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• 2023

Presently, the general seismic fragility evaluation method for a bridge system composed of member elements with different nonlinear behaviors against strong earthquakes has been to evaluate at the element-level. This study aims to develop a system-level seismic fragility evaluation method that represents a structural system. Because the seismic behavior of bridges is generally divided into transverse and longitudinal directions, this study evaluated the system-level seismic fragility in both directions separately. The element-level seismic fragility evaluation in the longitudinal direction was performed for piers, bridge bearings, pounding, abutments, and unseating. Because pounding, abutment, and unseating do not affect the transverse directional damages, the element-level seismic fragility evaluation was limited to piers and bridge bearings. Seismic analysis using nonlinear models of various structural members was performed using the OpenSEES program. System-level seismic fragility was evaluated assuming that damage between element-levels was serially connected. Pier damage was identified to have a dominant effect on system-level seismic fragility than other element-level damages. In other words, the most vulnerable element-level seismic fragility has the most dominant effect on the system-level seismic fragility.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.5
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• pp.427-437
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• 2018

Structural pounding is commonly observed phenomenon during major ground motion, which can cause both structural and architectural damages. To reduce the amount of damage from pounding, the best and effective way is to increase the separation distance. Generally, existing design procedures for determining the separation distance between adjacent buildings subjected to structural pounding are based on approximations of the buildings' peak relative displacement. These procedures are based on unknown safety levels. The aim of this research is to estimate probabilistic separation distance between adjacent structures by considering the variability in the system and uncertainties in the earthquakes characteristics through comprehensive numerical simulations. A large number of models were generated using a robust Monte-Carlo simulation. In total, 6.54 million time-history analyses were performed over the adopted models using an ensemble of 25 ground motions as seismic input within OpenSees software. The results show that a gap size of 50%, 70% and 100% of the considered design code for the structural periods in the range of 0.1-0.5 s, leads to have the probability of pounding about 41.5%, 18% and 5.8%, respectively. Finally, based on the results, two equations are developed for probabilistic determination of needed structural separation distance.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.371-390
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• 2010

Historical buildings in seismically active regions are severely damaged by earthquakes, since they certainly were not designed by the original builders to withstand seismic effects. In particular the reports after major ground motions indicate that earthquake-induced pounding between buildings may lead to substantial damage or even collapse of colliding structures. The research on structural pounding during earthquakes has been recently much advanced, although most of the studies are conducted on simplified single degree of freedom systems. In this paper a detailed pounding-involved response analysis of three adjacent structures is performed, concerning the main bodies of the "Quinto Orazio Flacco" school. The construction includes a main masonry building, with an M-shaped plan, and a reinforced concrete building, separated from the masonry one and realized along its free perimeter. By the analysis of the capacity curves obtained by suitable pushover procedures performed separately for each building, it emerges that masonry and reinforced concrete buildings are vulnerable to earthquake-induced structural pounding in the longitudinal direction. In particular, due to the geometric configuration of the school, a special case of impact between the reinforced concrete structure and two parts of the masonry building occurs. In order to evaluate the pounding-involved response of three adjacent structures, in this paper a numerical procedure is proposed, programmed using MATLAB software. Both a non-linear viscoelastic model to simulate impact and an elastic-perfectly plastic approximation of the storey shear force-drift relation are assumed, differently from many commercial softwares which admit just one non-linearity.