• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.801-820
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• 2015

The seismic sequence which hit the Northern Italian territory in 2012 produced extensive damage to reinforced concrete (RC) precast buildings typically adopted as industrial facilities. The considered damaged buildings are constituted by one-storey precast structures with RC columns connected to the ground by means of isolated socket foundations. The roof structural layout is composed of pre-stressed RC beams supporting pre-stressed RC floor elements, both designed as simply supported beams. The observed damage pattern, already highlighted in previous earthquakes, is mainly related to insufficient connection strength and ductility or to the absence of mechanical devices, being the connections designed neglecting seismic loads or neglecting displacement and rotation compatibility between adjacent elements. Following the vulnerabilities emerged in past seismic events, the paper investigates the seismic performance of industrial facilities typical of the Italian territory. The European building code seismic assessment methodologies are presented and discussed, as well as the retrofit interventions required to achieve an appropriate level of seismic capacity. The assessment procedure and retrofit solutions are applied to a selected case study.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.793-798
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• 2002

This paper presents the analytical results on the seismic retrofit of circular bridge columns with poor lap-splice details using FRP jacket. The as-built column suffered brittle failure due to the deterioration of lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcement without developing its flexural capacity or ductility. The retrofitted columns using FRP jacket showed significant improvement in seismic performance due to FRP's confinement effect. FRP's confinement effect is predicted by the classical elasticity solution for the laminated circular tube manufactural with several layers, and induces the flexural failure instead of bondslip failure.

• KCI Concrete Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.130-137
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• 2002

It is known that lap splice in the longitudinal reinforcement of reinforced concrete(RC) bridge columns is not desirable for seismic performance, but it is sometimes unavoidable. Lap splices were practically located in the potential plastic hinge region of most bridge columns that were constructed before the adoption of the seismic design provision of Korea Bridge Design Specification on 1992. The objective of this research is to evaluate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete(RC) bridge piers with lap splicing of longitudinal reinforcement in the plastic hinge region, to develop the enhancement scheme of their seismic capacity by retrofitting with glassfiber sheets, and to develop appropriate limited ductility design concept in low or moderate seismicity region. Nine test specimens in the aspect ratio of 4 were made with three confinement ratios and three types of lap splice. Quasi-static test was conducted in a displacement-controlled way under three different axial load levels. A significant reduction of displacement ductility ratios was observed for test columns with lap splices of longitudinal steels.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2024

In this study a steel moment frame system to be installed on the exterior surface of an existing structure is proposed as a seismic retrofit device. The seismic performance of the retrofit system was investigated by installing it on the exterior of a single story single bay reinforced concrete frame and testing it under cyclic loading. The cyclic loading test results indicated that the steel frame significantly enhanced the strength and ductility of the bare structure. Finite element analysis was carried out to validate the test results, and it was observed that there was good agreement between the two results. An analytical model was developed in order to apply the retrofit system to an example structure subjected to seven mainshock-aftershock sequential earthquake records. It was observed that the model structure was severely damaged due to the mainshock earthquakes, and the seismic response of the model structure increased significantly due to the subsequent aftershock earthquakes. The seismic retrofit of the model structure using the proposed steel frame turned out to be effective in decreasing the seismic response below the given limit state.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.141-168
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• 2012

The Retrofit Yield Spectrum (RYS) is a new spectrum-based device that relates seismic demand of a retrofitted structure with the fundamental design parameters of the retrofit. This is obtained from superposition of Yield Point Spectra with design charts that summarize in pertinent spectrum-compatible coordinates the attributes of a number of alternative retrofit scenarios. Therefore, once the requirements for upgrading a given structure have been determined, the RYS enable direct insight of the sensitivity of the seismic response of the upgraded structure to the preliminary design decisions made while establishing the retrofit plan. By virtue of their spectrum-based origin, RYS are derived with reference to a single mode of structural vibration; a primary objective is to control the contribution of this mode in the retrofit design so as to produce a desirable distribution of damage at the ultimate limit state by removing soft storey formations and engaging the maximum number of structural members in deformation, in response to the input motion. Calculations are performed with reference to the yield-point, where secant stiffness is proportional to the flexural strength of reinforced concrete members. Derivation and use of the Retrofit Yield Spectra (RYS) refers to the seismic demand expressed either in terms of spectral acceleration, spectral displacement or interstory drift, at yield of the first storey. A reinforced concrete building that has been tested in full scale to a sequence of simulated earthquake excitations is used in the paper as a demonstration case study to examine the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.285-300
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• 2017

This study investigates the seismic performance of a staggered wall structure designed with conventional strength based design, and compares it with the performance of the structure designed by capacity design procedure which ensures strong column-weak beam concept. Then the seismic reinforcement schemes such as addition of interior columns or insertion of rotational friction dampers at the ends of connecting beams are validated by comparing their seismic performances with those of the standard model structure. Fragility analysis shows that the probability to reach the dynamic instability is highest in the strength designed structure and is lowest in the structure with friction dampers. It is also observed that, at least for the specific model structures considered in this study, R factor of 5.0 can be used in the seismic design of staggered wall structures with proposed retrofit schemes, while R factor of 3.0 may be reasonable for standard staggered wall structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.563-577
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• 2022

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of a new seismic enhancement method for existing reinforced concrete (RC) frames by using an external sub-structure, the hybrid seismic retrofit method (HSRM) system. This retrofit system is an H-shaped frame bolt-connected to an existing RC frame with an infilled-concrete layer between their gaps. Two RC frames were built, one with and one without HSRM, and tested under cyclic loading. The experimental findings showed that the retrofitted RC frame was superior to the non-retrofitted specimen in terms of initial stiffness, peak load, and energy dissipation capacity. A numerical simulation using a commercial program was employed for verification with the experiments. The results obtained from the simulations were consistent with those from the experiments, indicating the finite element (FE) models can simulate the seismic behaviors of bare RC frame and retrofitted RC frame using HSRM.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.505-514
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• 2021

A formulation based on structural reliability and cost effectiveness is proposed to provide recommendations to select the best retrofit strategy for schools with reinforced concrete frames and masonry walls, among three proposed alternatives. The cost calculation includes the retrofit cost and the expected costs of failure consequences. Also, the uncertainty of the seismic hazard is considered for each school site. The formulation identifies the potential failure modes, among shear and bending forces for beams, and flexure-compression forces for columns, for each school, and the seismic damages suffered by the schools after the earthquake of September 17, 2017 are taken into account to calibrate the damaged conditions per school. The school safety level is measured through its global failure probability, instead of only the local failure probability. The proposed retrofit alternatives are appraised in terms of the cost/benefit balance under future earthquakes, for the respective site seismic hazard, as opposed to the current practice of just restoring the structure original resistance. The best retrofit is the one that corresponds to the minimum value of the expected life cycle cost. The study, with further developments, may be used to develop general recommendations to retrofit schools located at seismic zones.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.49-57
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• 2010

This study is the research appling the representative Displacement-Based Design which is the basic concept of Direct Displacement Based Design proposed by Chopra and Goel to original Reinforced Concrete structure and determining the thickness of retrofit Steel Jacket about the Maximum design ground acceleration, and developing the more improved Algorithm as well as program by the Retrofit Design method and Nonlinear analysis by the Performance design method before and after reinforcement appling the determined retrofit thickness. To predict the target displacement of retrofitted columns, a nonlinear analysis model of reinforced concrete columns has been developed to be based on the nonlinear fiber cross-sectional and segmental analysis model, and the seismic displacement level of retrofitted columns is estimated by two procedures, the direct displacement-based design method and the displacement coefficient method. In examples of seismic retrofit design, the current seismic improved design method gives good results in improvements of displacement levels and displacement ductilities of retrofitted columns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.467-488
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• 2023

Seismic retrofit of an existing steel-reinforced concrete hospital building that features innovative use of a continuous energy-dissipative steel column (CEDC) system is presented in this paper. The special system has been adopted to provide an efficient solution taking into account the difficulties of applying traditional intervention techniques to minimize the impact on architectural functionality and avoid the loss of building function and evacuation during the retrofit implementation. The lateral stiffness and strength of the CEDC system were defined based on the geometric and mechanical properties of the steel strip dampers. The hysteretic behavior under cyclic loadings was defined using a simplified numerical model. Its effectiveness was validated by comparing the results of full-scale experimental data available from the literature. All the main design considerations of the retrofitting plan are described in detail. The effectiveness of the proposed retrofitting system was demonstrated by nonlinear time-history analyses under different sets of earthquake-strong ground motions. The analysis results show that the CEDC system is effective in controlling the deformation pattern and significantly reducing damage to the existing structure during major earthquakes.