• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.313-322
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• 2018

The present study is dedicated to investigate the SH body-as well as Love-waves propagation effects in porous media with uncertain porosity and permeability. A unified formulation of the governing equations for one-dimensional (1-D) wave propagation in anisotropic porous layered media is presented deterministically. The uncertainties around the above two cited parameters are taken into account by random fields with the help of Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS). Random samples of the porosity and the permeability are generated according to the normal and lognormal distribution functions, respectively, with a mean value and a coefficient of variation for each one of the two parameters. After performing several thousands of samples, the mathematical expectation (mean) of the solution of the wave propagation equations in terms of amplification functions for SH waves and in terms of dispersion equation for Love-waves are obtained. The limits of the Love wave velocity in a porous soil layer overlaying a homogeneous half-space are obtained where it is found that random variations of porosity change the zeros of the wave equation. Also, the increase of uncertainties in the porosity (high coefficient of variation) decreases the mean amplification function amplitudes and shifts the fundamental frequencies. However, no effects are observed on both Love wave dispersion and amplification function for random variations of permeability. Lastly, the present approach is applied to a case study in the Adapazari town basin so that to estimate ground motion accelerations lacked in the fast-growing during the main shock of the damaging 1999 Kocaeli earthquake.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.509-519
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• 2017

Wind field in mountainous regions demonstrates unique distribution characteristic as compared with the wind field of the flat area, wind load and wind effect are the key considerations in structural design of television towers situated in mountainous regions. The television tower to be constructed is located at the top of Xiushan Mountain in Nanjing, China. In order to investigate the impact of terrain factors of hilltops on wind loads, firstly a wind tunnel test was performed for the mountainous area within 800m from the television tower. Then the tower basal forces such as bending moments and shear strength were obtained based on high frequency force balance (HFFB) test. Based on the experiments, the improved method for determining the load combinations was applied to extract the response distribution patterns of foundation internal force and peak acceleration of the tower top, then the equivalent static wind loads were computed under different wind angles, load conditions and equivalent goals. The impact of terrain factors, damping ratio and equivalent goals on the wind load distribution of a television tower was discussed. Finally the equivalent static wind loads of the television tower under the 5 most adverse wind angles and 5 most adverse load conditions were computed. The experimental method, computations and research findings provide important references for the anti-wind design of high-rise structure built on hilltops.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.71-87
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• 2014

Interaction between closely-spaced buildings subject to earthquake induced strong ground motions, termed in the literature as "seismic pounding", occurs commonly during major seismic events in contemporary congested urban environments. Seismic pounding is not taken into account by current codes of practice and is rarely considered in practice at the design stage of new buildings constructed "in contact" with existing ones. Thus far, limited research work has been devoted to quantify the influence of slab-to-slab pounding on the inelastic seismic demands at critical locations of structural members in adjacent structures that are not aligned in series. In this respect, this paper considers a typical case study of a "new" reinforced concrete (R/C) EC8-compliant, torsionally sensitive, 7-story corner building constructed within a block, in bi-lateral contact with two existing R/C 5-story structures with same height floors. A non-linear local plasticity numerical model is developed and a series of non-linear time-history analyses is undertaken considering the corner building "in isolation" from the existing ones (no-pounding case), and in combination with the existing ones (pounding case). Numerical results are reported in terms of averages of ratios of peak inelastic rotation demands at all structural elements (beams, columns, shear walls) at each storey. It is shown that seismic pounding reduces on average the inelastic demands of the structural members at the lower floors of the 7-story building. However, the discrepancy in structural response of the entire block due to torsion-induced, bi-directionally seismic pounding is substantial as a result of the complex nonlinear dynamics of the coupled building block system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.625-641
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• 2020

The realistic modeling of the beam-column semi-rigid connection in steel frames attracted the attention of many researchers in the past for the seismic analysis of semi-rigid frames. Comparatively less studies have been made to investigate the behavior of steel frames with semi-rigid connections under different types of earthquake. Herein, the seismic behavior of semi-rigid steel frames is investigated under both far and near-field earthquakes. The semi-rigid connection is modeled by the multilinear plastic link element consisting of rotational springs. The kinematic hysteresis model is used to define the dynamic behavior of the rotational spring, describing the nonlinearity of the semi-rigid connection as defined in SAP2000. The nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) is performed to obtain response time histories of the frame under scaled earthquakes at three PGA levels denoting the low, medium and high-level earthquakes. The other important parameters varied are the stiffness and strength parameters of the connections, defining the degree of semi-rigidity. For studying the behavior of the semi-rigid frame, a large number of seismic demand parameters are considered. The benchmark for comparison is taken as those of the corresponding rigid frame. Two different frames, namely, a five-story frame and a ten-story frame are considered as the numerical examples. It is shown that semi-rigid frames prove to be effective and beneficial in resisting the seismic forces for near-field earthquakes (PGA ≈ 0.2g), especially in reducing the base shear to a considerable extent for the moderate level of earthquake. Further, the semi-rigid frame with a relatively weaker beam and less connection stiffness may withstand a moderately strong earthquake without having much damage in the beams.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.719-737
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• 2016

The present study investigated the earthquake behavior of R/C structures considering the vertical earthquake motion with the help of a comparative study. For this aim, the linear time-history analyses of a high-rise R/C structure designed according to TSC-2007 requirements were conducted including and excluding the vertical earthquake motion. Earthquake records used in the analyses were selected based on the ratio of vertical peak acceleration to horizontal peak acceleration (V/H). The frequency-domain analyses of the earthquake records were also performed to compare the dominant frequency of the records with that of the structure. Based on the results obtained from the time-history analyses under the earthquake loading with (H+V) and without the vertical earthquake motion (H), the value of the overturning moment and the top-story vertical displacement were found to relatively increase when considering the vertical earthquake motion. The base shear force was also affected by this motion; however, its increase was lower compared to the overturning moment and the top-story vertical displacement. The other two parameters, the top-story lateral displacement and the top-story rotation angle, barely changed under H and H+V loading cases. Modal damping ratios and their variations in horizontal and vertical directions were also estimated using response acceleration records. No significant change in the horizontal damping ratio was observed whereas the vertical modal damping ratio noticeably increased under H+V loading. The results obtained from this study indicate that the desired structural earthquake performance cannot be provided under H+V loading due to the excessive increase in the overturning moment, and that the vertical damping ratio should be estimated considering the vertical earthquake motion.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2012

A deep-sea manganese nodule miner consists of 4 parts: the pickup device, crusher, disposal device, and tracked vehicle. The tracked vehicle is an essential component to keep the self-propelled miner moving across deep-sea soil. The performances of the tracked vehicle are influenced by noise factors: the shear strength of the seafloor, bottom current, seafloor slope, track speed, reaction forces of flexible hose, etc. It is necessary to adopt a robust design method that improves the performances and minimizes the variation caused by noise factors. Taguchi's method, the most widely known robust design method, searches for the robust optimum using an orthogonal array composed of the product of the inner array and outer array. In this paper, we propose a new screening technique to reduce the number of input factors and apply the MRSN (Multi-Response Signal to Noise) ratio to convert multiple performances into single one in order to overcome the difficulties and limitations of using Taguchi's method in a case with many input factors and multiple performances. A test miner was already designed and tested. It has about 1/10 the capacity of a commercial one and was successfully operated at an in-shore area. Taguchi's robust design was applied to the tracked vehicle of the test miner, and design improvements were implemented for the vehicle.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.73-80
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• 2008

The objective of current study is to develop an optimization technique for the seismic actively controlled building structures using active tendon devices by an efficient solution of LQR control gain. In order to solve the active control system, the Ricatti closed-loop algorithm has been applied, and the state vector has been formulated by the transfer matrix and solved by a numerical technique of the trapezoidal rule. The time-delay problem has been also considered by phase compensation. To optimize the performance index, the ratio of the weighted matrix is the design variable, allowable story drift limits of IBC 2000 and tendon forces have been applied as restraint conditions, and the optimum control program has been developed with the algorithm of the SUMT technique. In examples of the optimization problem of eight stories shear buildings, it is evaluated that the optimum controlled building is more suitable in the control of earthquake response than the uncontrolled system and can reduce the performance index to compare with the controlled system with a constant ratio of the weighted matrix.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.507-514
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• 2007

This paper summarizes the results of a research on the isolate effects and economical efficiencies of seismic isolation design compared with the existing earthquake-resistant design, and presents seismic performance of the base isolation system consisting of sliding-type bearing and lead rubber bearing (LRB) compared with that consisting of the LRB only. From the results of the research, it is verified that seismic isolation is very effective to mitigate the influence of earthquake on structures and it is possible to increase the serviceability due to decrease of the floor acceleration. Also, from the point of view of reduction of story acceleration and base shear, the base isolation system consisting of sliding-type bearing and LRB is more effective than that with LRB only. In respect of economical efficiency, special care should be taken in using this method since costs which have to be paid in proportin to increased performance are high.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.15-20
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• 2009

The results of crack evaluation by conventional UT(Ultrasonic Test)is highly depend on the inspector's experience or knowledge of ultrasound. Phased array UT system and its application methods for small crack length evaluation will be a good alternative method which overcome present UT weakness. This study was aimed at checking the accuracy of crack length evaluation method by electronic scanning and discuss about characteristics of electronic scanning for crack length evaluation. Especially ultrasonic phased array with electronic scan technique was used in carrying out both sizing and detect ability of crack as its length changes. The response of ultrasonic phased array was analyzed to obtain the special method of determining crack length without moving the transducer and detect-ability of crack minimal length and depth from the material. A method of crack length determining by electronic scanning for the small crack is very real method which has it's accuracy and verify the effectiveness of method compared to a conventional crack length determination.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.173-190
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• 2012

With recent growing interests in the Performance-Based Seismic Design and Assessment Methodology, more realistic modeling of a structural system is deemed essential in analyzing, designing, and evaluating both newly constructed and existing buildings under seismic events. Consequently, a shallow foundation element becomes an essential constituent in the implementation of this seismic design and assessment methodology. In this paper, a contact interface fiber section element is presented for use in modeling soil-shallow foundation systems. The assumption of a rigid footing on a Winkler-based soil rests simply on the Euler-Bernoulli's hypothesis on sectional kinematics. Fiber section discretization is employed to represent the contact interface sectional response. The hyperbolic function provides an adequate means of representing the stress-deformation behavior of each soil fiber. The element is simple but efficient in representing salient features of the soil-shallow foundation system (sliding, settling, and rocking). Two experimental results from centrifuge-scale and full-scale cyclic loading tests on shallow foundations are used to illustrate the model characteristics and verify the accuracy of the model. Based on this comprehensive model validation, it is observed that the model performs quite satisfactorily. It resembles reasonably well the experimental results in terms of moment, shear, settlement, and rotation demands. The hysteretic behavior of moment-rotation responses and the rotation-settlement feature are also captured well by the model.