• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.557-569
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• 2022

The retrofit of existing structures in high seismic zones is a crucial issue in the earthquake engineering field. The interest of the research community is particularly high for the structures that do not respect current seismic codes and present structural deficiencies such as poor detailing and lack of capacity design provisions. A reinforced concrete (RC) school building is used as case study to show the influence of different knowledge levels on the seismic retrofitting cost assessment. The safety assessment of the case study building highlights deficiencies under both vertical and seismic loads. By considering all the possible knowledge levels defined by the Italian such as by the European codes in order to derive the mechanical properties of the school building constitutive materials, the retrofit operations are designed to achieve different seismic safety thresholds. The retrofit structural costs are calculated and summed up to the costs for in-situ in tests. The paper shows how for the case study building the major costs spent for a large number of in-situ tests allows to save a consistent amount of money for retrofit operations. The hypothesis of demolition and reconstruction of the building is also compared in terms of costs with all the analyzed retrofit options.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.173-183
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• 2024

This study investigates a new seismic retrofit system that utilizes rotational friction dampers and axial springs. The retrofit system involves a steel frame with rotational friction dampers (RFD) at beam-column joints and linear springs at the corners, providing energy dissipation and self-centering capabilities to existing structures. The axial spring acts as a self-centering mechanism that eliminates residual deformations, while the friction damper mitigates seismic damage. To evaluate the seismic performance of the proposed retrofit system, a series of cyclic loading tests were carried out on a steel beam-column subassembly equipped with the proposed devices. An analytical model was then developed to validate the experimental results. A performance point ratio (PPR) was presented to optimize the design parameters of the retrofit system, and a performance-based seismic design strategy was developed based on the PPR. The retrofit system's effectiveness and the presented performance-based design approach were evaluated through case study models, and the analysis results demonstrated that the developed retrofit system and the performance-based design procedure were effective in retrofitting structures for multi-level design objectives.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.481-494
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• 2020

In this paper, a probability-based procedure to evaluate the performance of existing RC structures exposed to seismic and fire actions is presented. The procedure is demonstrated with reference to an existing old school building, located in Italy. The vulnerability assessment of the building highlights deficiencies under both static and seismic loads. Retrofit operations are designed to achieve the seismic safety. The idea of the work consists in assessing the performance of the existing and retrofitted building in terms of both the seismic and fire resistance. The seismic retrofit and fire resistance upgrading follow different paths, depending on the specific configuration of the building. A good seismic retrofit does not entail an improving of the fire resistance and vice versa. The goal of the current work is to study the variation of response due to the uncertainties considered in records/fire curves selection and to carry out the assessment of the studied RC structure by obtaining fragility curves under the effect of different records/temperature. The results show the fragility curves before and after retrofit operations and both in terms of seismic performance and fire resistance performance, measuring the percent improving for the different limit states.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.293-301
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• 2023

Existing reinforced concrete buildings with seismically deficient details have premature failure under earthquake loads. The fiber-reinforced polymer column jacket enhances the lateral resisting capacities with additional confining pressures. This paper aims to quantify the retrofit effect varying the confinement and stiffness-related parameters under three earthquake scenarios and establish the retrofit strategy. The retrofit effects were estimated by comparing energy demands between non-retrofitted and retrofitted conditions. The retrofit design parameters are determined considering seismic hazard levels to maximize the retrofit effects. The critical parameters of the retrofit system were determined by the confinement-related parameters at moderate and high seismic levels and the stiffness-related parameters at low seismic levels.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.29-38
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• 2012

Recently large scale earthquake s are occurred around the world following the damage of buildings. So the interest of preparing for earthquake seismic design and seismic performance has becoming high. School buildings are though used for educational purpose; they are also used as emergency shelter for local residents during earthquake disaster. However, the current seismic design ratio of our country (Korea) is 3.7% and if massive earthquake is occurred it follows a serious damage. In order to overcome this situation, seismic performance evaluation is carried out for existing school building and an accurate and appropriate seismic retrofit is required based on performance evaluation to upgrade the existing school buildings. In this paper, nonlinear static analysis on existing school buildings for ATC-40 and FEMA-356 are carried out using the capacity spectrum method to evaluate seismic performance and to determine the need for retrofitting. In addition, after reinforcement to verify the effect of retrofit enhance the seismic performance is applied the seismic performance evaluation is carried out to verify the effect of seismic retrofit time history analysis using nonlinear dynamic analysis is also performed and nonlinear behavior of earthquake load of seismic retrofit of structures was also investigated.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.259-272
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• 2020

In this study a new hysteretic damper for seismic retrofit of soft-first story structures is proposed and its seismic retrofit effect is evaluated. The damper consists of one steel column member and two flexural fuses at both ends made of steel plates with reduced section, which can be placed right beside existing columns in order to minimize interference with passengers and automobiles in the installed bays. The relative displacement between the stories forms flexural plastic hinges at the fuses and dissipate seismic energy. The theoretical formulation and the design procedure based on plastic analysis is provided for the proposed damper, and the results are compared with a detailed finite-element (FE) model. In order to apply the damper in structural analysis, a macromodel of the damper is also developed and calibrated by the derived theoretical formulas. The results are compared with the detailed FE analysis, and the efficiency of the damper is further validated by the seismic retrofit of a case study structure and assessing its seismic performance before and after the retrofit. The results show that the proposed hysteretic damper can be used effectively in reducing damage to soft-first story structures.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.7_spc
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• pp.553-560
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• 2016

After an earthquake occurred in the Gyeongju, 2016, many low-story buildings have been questioned in terms of the seismic performance since mostly they have been exempted from the seismic design requirement since 1988. In this study, a 3-story moment resisting frame (MRF) building was analyzed and evaluated the seismic performance. Due to the insufficient seismic performance required for the seismic performance levels, three different seismic retrofit schemes were proposed and their seismic performances were re-evaluated. While steel brace and open shear wall retrofit systems mainly focused on the strength retrofit, the VES damper retrofit system is mainly to enhance the energy dissipation capacity of the system and resultes in the increased ductility. The original building and 3 retrofitted buildings were evaluated using the nonlinear static and nonlinear dynamic analyses and suggestions were proposed. Through the analysis of nonlinear time history and push-over using MIDAS/Gen program, damages of the building in terms of top story and average story drift and effect of reinforcement were analyzed.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.221-227
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• 2019

In this paper passive seismic retrofit devices for building structures developed by the author in recent years are introduced. The proposed damping devices were developed by slightly modifying the configuration of conventional devices and enhancing their effectiveness. First a seismic retrofit system consisting of a pin-jointed steel frame and rotational friction dampers installed at each corner of the steel frame was developed. Then two types of steel slit dampers were developed; box-type slit damper and multi-slit damper. In addition, hybrid dampers were developed by combining a slit damper and a friction damper connected in parallel. Finally a self-centering system was developed by using preloaded tendons and viscous dampers connected in series. For each retrofit system developed, an appropriate analytical model was developed, and the seismic performance was verified by loading test and earthquake analysis of case study structures. The experimental and analysis results show that the proposed systems can be used efficiently to enhance the seismic performance of building structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.645-664
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• 2021

There is a growing need of seismic retrofit of existing non-seismically designed structures in Korea after the 2016 Gyeongju and 2017 Pohang earthquakes, especially school buildings which experienced extensive damage during those two earthquakes. To this end, a steel multi-slit damper (MSD) was developed in this research which can be installed inside of partition walls of school buildings. Full-scale two-story RC frames were tested with and without the proposed dampers. The frames had structural details similar to school buildings constructed in the 1980s in Korea. The details of the experiments were described in detail, and the test results were validated using the analysis model. The developed seismic retrofit strategy was applied to a case study school building structure, and its seismic performance was evaluated before and after retrofit using the MSD. The results show that the developed retrofit strategy can improve the seismic performance of the structure to satisfy a given target performance level.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.283-294
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• 2022

In this study, a new seismic retrofit scheme of building structures is developed by combining a steel moment frame and steel slit plates to be installed inside of an existing reinforced concrete frame. This device has the energy dissipation capability of slit dampers with slight loss of stiffness compared to the conventional steel frame reinforcement method. In order to investigate the seismic performance of the retrofit system, it was installed inside of a reinforced concrete frame and tested under cyclic loading. Finite element analysis was carried out for validation of the test results, and it was observed that the analysis and the test results match well. An analytical model was developed to apply the retrofit system to a commercial software to be used for seismic retrofit design of an example structure. The effectiveness of the retrofit scheme was investigated through nonlinear time-history response analysis (NLTHA). The cyclic loading test showed that the steel frame with slit dampers provides significant increase in strength and ductility to the bare structure. According to the analysis results of a case study building, the proposed system turned out to be effective in decreasing the seismic response of the model structure below the given target limit state.