• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.367-392
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• 2020

The specific characteristics of near-field earthquake records can lead to different dynamic responses of bridges compared to far-field records. However, the effect of near-field strong ground motion has often been neglected in the seismic performance assessment of the bridges. Furthermore, damage to horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges in the past earthquakes has intensified the potential of seismic vulnerability of these structures due to their distinctive dynamic behavior. Based on the nonlinear time history analyses in OpenSEES, this article, assesses the effects of near-field versus far-field earthquakes on the seismic performance of horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges by accounting the vertical component of the earthquake records. Analytical seismic fragility curves have been derived thru considering uncertainties in the earthquake records, material and geometric properties of bridges. The findings indicate that near-field effects reasonably increase the seismic vulnerability in this bridge sub-class. The results pave the way for future regional risk assessments regarding the importance of either including or excluding near-field effects on the seismic performance of horizontally curved bridges.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1111-1133
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• 2015

Rebar corrosion in concrete is one of the main causes of reduction of service life of reinforced concrete buildings. This paper presents the influence of rebar corrosion on the structural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings subjected to strong earthquake ground motion. Different levels of rebar corrosion scenarios were applied on a typical four story RC frame. The deteriorated conditions as a result of these scenarios include loss in cross-sectional area and loss of mechanical properties of the reinforcement bars, loss in bond strength, and loss in concrete strength and its modulus of elasticity. Dynamic analyses of the frame with different corrosion scenarios are performed with selected strong earthquake ground motion records. The influences of degradation in both concrete and reinforcement on structural behavior are investigated by comparing the various parameters of the frame under different corrosion scenarios with respect to each other. The results show that the progressive deterioration of the frame due to rebar corrosion causes serious structural behavior changes such as change in failure mode. The intensity, propagation time, and extensity of rebar corrosion have very important effects on the level of degradation of steel and concrete, as well as on the earthquake behavior of the structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.489-500
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• 2011

The elastic seismic response of plan-asymmetric multi storey steel-frame buildings is investigated under earthquake loading with particular emphasis on forward-rupture directivity and fling records. Three asymmetric building systems are generated with different torsional stiffness and varying static eccentricity. The structural characteristic of these systems are designed according to UBC 97 code and their seismic responses subjected to a set of earthquake records are obtained from the response history analysis (RHA) as well as the linear static analysis (LSA). It is shown that, the elastic torsional response is influenced by the intensity of near-fault ground motions with different energy contents. In the extreme case of very strong earthquakes, the behaviour of torsionally stiff buildings and torsionally flexible buildings may differ substantially due to the fact that the displacement envelope of the deck depends on ground motion characteristics.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.451-458
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• 2008

The near-fault ground motion (NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse of large magnitude. NFGM's have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Izmit Turkey (1999), Kobe Japan (1995), Northridge USA (1994), etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the near-fault ground motion (NFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of near-fault ground motions on reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers with lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. The seismic performance of four RC bridge piers under near-fault ground motions was investigated on the shake table. In addition, a RC bridge pier is subjected to pseudo-dynamic loadings. Test results showed that large residual displacements were observed in RC bridge piers under NFGM. RC specimens on the shake table failed at relatively low displacement ductility, compared with the displacement ductility of RC bridge pier subjected to pseudo-dynamic loadings.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.93-96
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• 2008

The near fault ground motion(NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse of large magnitude. NFGM's have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Turkey Izmit (1999), Japan Kobe(1995), Northridge(1994), etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the far fault ground motion(FFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of near-fault ground motions on RC bridge piers without lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. The seismic performance of two RC bridge piers under near-fault ground motions was investigated on the shake table. In addition, Two of four identical RC bridge piers were tested under a quasi-static load, and the others were under a pseudo-dynamic load. The respectively two RC bridge pier is comparatively subjected to Pseudo-dynamic loadings and Quasi-Static loadings. This paper indicated that more gives bigger ultimate strain of longitudinal steels to be fractured at bigger PGA motion.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.141-157
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• 2014

The Conditional Mean Spectrum represents a powerful link between the seismic hazard information and the selection of strong ground motion records at a particular site. The scope of the paper is to apply for the city of Bucharest for the first time the method to obtain the Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS) presented by Baker (2011) and to select, on the basis of the CMS, a suite of strong ground motions for performing elastic and inelastic dynamic analyses of buildings and structures with fundamental periods of vibration in the vicinity of 1.0 s. The major seismic hazard for Bucharest and for most of Southern and Eastern Romania is dominated by the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source. The ground motion prediction equation developed for subduction-type earthquakes and soil conditions by Youngs et al. (1997) is used for the computation of the Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS) and the CMS. The disaggregation of seismic hazard is then performed in order to determine the mean causal values of magnitude and source-to-site distance for a particular spectral ordinate (for a spectral period T = 1.0 s in this study). The spectral period of 1.0 s is considered to be representative for the new stock of residential and office reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in Bucharest. The differences between the Uniform Hazard Spectrum (UHS) and the Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS) are discussed taking into account the scarcity of ground motions recorded in the region of Bucharest and the frequency content characteristics of the recorded data. Moreover, a record selection based on the criteria proposed by Baker and Cornell (2006) and Baker (2011) is performed using a dataset consisting of strong ground motions recorded during seven Vrancea seismic events.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.825-837
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• 2017

Due to the severe impacts of recent earthquakes, the use of seismic isolation is paramount for the safety of nuclear structures. The diversity observed in seismic events demands ongoing research to analyze the devastating attributes involved, and hence to enhance the sustainability of base-isolated nuclear power plants. This study reports the seismic performance of a seismically-isolated nuclear reactor containment building (NRCB) under strong short-period ground motions (SPGMs) and long-period ground motions (LPGMs). The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission-based design response spectrum for the seismic design of nuclear power plants is stipulated as the reference spectrum for ground motion selection. Within the period range(s) of interest, the spectral matching of selected records with the target spectrum is ensured using the spectral-compatibility approach. NRC-compliant SPGMs and LPGMs from the mega-thrust Tohoku earthquake are used to obtain the structural response of the base-isolated NRCB. To account for the lack of earthquakes in low-to-moderate seismicity zones and the gap in the artificial synthesis of long-period records, wavelet-decomposition based autoregressive moving average modeling for artificial generation of real ground motions is performed. Based on analysis results from real and simulated SPGMs versus LPGMs, the performance of NRCBs is discussed with suggestions for future research and seismic provisions.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.667-673
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• 2010

The near fault ground motion (NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse with large magnitude. NFGMs have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Northridge (1994), Japan Kobe (1995), Turkey Izmit (1999), China Sichuan (2008), Haiti (2010) etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the far field ground motion (FFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the seismic response of reinforced concrete bridge piers subjected to near-fault ground motions. The seismic performance of six RC bridge piers depending on three confinement steel ratios and three superstructure mass was investigated on the shaking table. From these experimental results, it was confirmed that the reduction of seismic performance was observed for test specimens with lower confinement steel ratio or more deck weight. The displacement ductility of RC bridge piers in terms of the stiffness degradation is proposed based on test results the shaking table.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.365-384
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• 2014

The intensity of a ground motion can be measured by a number of parameters, some of which might exhibit robust correlations with the damage of structures subjected to that motion. In this study, 204 near-fault pulse-type records are selected and their seismic parameters are determined. Time history and damage analyses of a tested 3-storey reinforced concrete frame representing for low-rise reinforced concrete buildings subjected to those earthquake motions are performed after calibration and comparison with the available experimental results. The aim of this paper is to determine amongst several available seismic parameters, the ones that have strong correlations with the structural damage measured by a damage index and the maximum inter-story drift. The results show that Velocity Spectrum Intensity is the leading parameter demonstrating the best correlation, followed by Housner Intensity, Spectral Acceleration and Spectral Displacement. These seismic parameters are recommended as reliable parameters of near-fault pulse-type motions related to damage potential of low-rise reinforced concrete structures. The results also reaffirm that the conventional and widely used parameter of Peak Ground Acceleration does not exhibit a good correlation with the structural damage.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.129-142
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• 2018

The current paper introduces a new approach for development of damage index to obtain the maximum damage in the reinforced concrete frames caused by as-recorded single and consecutive earthquakes. To do so, two sets of strong ground motions are selected based on maximum and approximately maximum peak ground acceleration (PGA) from "PEER" and "USGS" centers. Consecutive earthquakes in the first and second groups, not only occurred in similar directions and same stations, but also their real time gaps between successive shocks are less than 10 minutes and 10 days, respectively. In the following, a suite of six concrete moment resisting frames, including 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 and 15 stories, are designed in OpenSees software and analyzed for more than 850 times under two groups of as-recorded strong ground motion records with/without seismic sequences phenomena. The idealized multilayer artificial neural networks, with the least value of Mean Square Error (MSE) and maximum value of regression (R) between outputs and targets were then employed to generate the empirical charts and several correction equations for design utilization. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed damage index, calibration of the new approach to existing real data (the result of Park-Ang damage index 1985), were conducted. The obtained results show good precision of the developed ANNs-based model in predicting the maximum damage of regular reinforced concrete frames.