• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.179-191
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• 2009

This paper is aimed at combining wavelet multiresolution analysis and nonstationary Kanai-Tajimi model for the simulation of earthquake accelerograms. The proposed approach decomposes earthquake accelerograms using wavelet multiresolution analysis for the simulation of earthquake accelerograms. This study is on the basis of some Iranian earthquake records, namely Naghan 1977, Tabas 1978, Manjil 1990 and Bam 2003. The obtained results indicate that the simulated records preserve the significant properties of the actual accelerograms. In order to investigate the efficiency of the model, the spectral response curves obtained from the simulated accelerograms have been compared with those from the actual records. The results revealed that there is a good agreement between the response spectra of simulated and actual records.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.29-50
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• 2004

A total life model was developed to assess the service life of aging aircraft. The primary focus of this paper is the development of crack growth life projection using the response surface method. Crack growth life projection is a necessary component of the total life model. The study showed that the number of load cycles N needed for a crack to propagate to a specified size can be linearly related to the geometric parameter, material, and stress level of the component considered when all the variables are transformed to logarithmic values. By the Central Limit theorem, the ln N was approximated by Gaussian distribution. This Gaussian model compared well with the histograms of the number of load cycles generated from simulated crack growth curves. The outcome of this study will aid engineers in designing their crack growth experiments to develop the stochastic crack growth models for service life assessments.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.5
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• pp.577-591
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• 2022

This paper develops a comparatively time-efficient methodology for performing seismic fragility analysis of the reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in the presence of uncertainty sources. It aims to appraise the effectiveness of any variation in the material's mechanical properties as epistemic uncertainty, and the record-to-record variation as aleatory uncertainty in structural response. In this respect, the fuzzy set theory, a well-known 𝛼-cut approach, and the Genetic Algorithm (GA) assess the median of collapse fragility curves as a fuzzy response. GA is requisite for searching the maxima and minima of the objective function (median fragility herein) in each membership degree, 𝛼. As this is a complicated and time-consuming process, the authors propose utilizing the Gene Expression Programming-based (GEP-based) equation for reducing the computational analysis time of the case study building significantly. The results indicate that the proposed structural analysis algorithm on the derived GEP model is able to compute the fuzzy median fragility about 33.3% faster, with errors less than 1%.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1133-1145
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• 2015

A new neural network (NN) predictive controller (NNPC) algorithm has been developed and tested in the computer simulation of active control of a nonlinear structure. In the present method an NN is used as a predictor. This NN has been trained to predict the future response of the structure to determine the control forces. These control forces are calculated by minimizing the difference between the predicted and desired responses via a numerical minimization algorithm. Since the NNPC is very time consuming and not suitable for real-time control, it is then used to train an NN controller. To consider the effectiveness of the controller on probability of damage, fragility curves are generated. The approach is validated by using simulated response of a 3 story nonlinear benchmark building excited by several historical earthquake records. The simulation results are then compared with a linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) active controller. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm is completely effective in relative displacement reduction.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.411-436
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• 2015

In this work, a comprehensive approach to model the structural behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams subjected to reinforcement corrosion is proposed. The coupled environmental - mechanical damage model developed by some of the authors is enhanced for considering the main effects of corrosion on concrete, on composite interaction between reinforcement bars and concrete and on steel reinforcement. This approach is adopted for reproducing a set of experimental tests on RC beams with different corrosion degrees. After the simulation of the sound beams, the main parameters involved in the relationships characterizing the effects of corrosion are calibrated and tested, referring to one degraded beam. Then, in order to validate the proposed approach and to assess its ability to predict the structural response of deteriorated elements, several corroded beams are analyzed. The numerical results show a good agreement with the experimental ones: in particular, the proposed model properly predicts the structural response in terms of both failure mode and load-deflection curves, with increasing corrosion level.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.121-128
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• 2018

Severe earthquakes can cause damage to society both socially and economically. An appropriate initial response can alleviate damage from severe earthquakes. In order to formulate an appropriate initial response, it is necessary to identify damage situations in societies; however, it is difficult to grasp this information immediately after an earthquake event. In this study, an earthquake damage assessment methodology for buildings is proposed for estimating damage situations immediately after severe earthquakes. A response spectrum database is constructed to provide response spectra at arbitrary locations from earthquake measurements immediately after the event. The fragility curves are used to estimate the damage of the buildings. Earthquake damage assessment is performed from the response spectrum database at the building scale to provide enhanced damage condition information. Earthquake damage assessment for Gyeongju city and Pohang city were conducted using the proposed methodology, when an earthquake occurred on September 12, 2016, and November 15, 2017. Results confirm that the proposed earthquake damage assessment effectively represented the earthquake damage situation in the city to decide on an appropriate initial response by providing detailed information at the building scale.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2014

In this paper, seismic fragility analysis of lightning arrester is performed using capacity spectrum method(CSM). Since seismic fragility analysis of structure with many structural members is required to calculate many inelastic responses for several tens or hundreds of ground motions, simple method such as CSM is more appropriate than response history analysis(RHA). In general, accuracy of seismic response evaluated by CSM is less than that by RHA. In order to increase accuracy of CSM, equivalent SDOF method and performance point calculation technique are applied to CSM. Seismic fragility method proposed by Shinozuka et al. is used. In order to evaluate site effect of ground motions on seismic fragility, 60 different site classification earthquakes are selected as input ground motions. From the seismic fragility curves of lightning arrester evaluated by CSM and RHA, it can be observed that the seismic fragility curves evaluated by CSM are very similar to those by RHA. Also, it can be observed that main seismic failure mode of lightning arrest is bushing breakage.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1145-1167
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• 2016

This study presents a new method to computes analytical fragility curves of a structure subject to tsunami waves. The method uses dynamic analysis at each stage of the computation. First, the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) model simulates the propagation of the tsunami waves from shallow water to their impact on the target structure. The advantage of SPH over mesh based methods is its capability to model wave surface interaction when large deformations are involved, such as the impact of water on a structure. Although SPH is computationally more expensive than mesh based method, nowadays the advent of parallel computing on general purpose graphic processing unit overcome this limitation. Then, the impact force is applied to a finite element model of the structure and its dynamic non-linear response is computed. When a data-set of tsunami waves is used analytical fragility curves can be computed. This study proves it is possible to obtain the response of a structure to a tsunami wave using state of the art dynamic models in every stage of the computation at an affordable cost.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.443-462
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• 2015

Some model building codes stipulate that the design displacement of a building can be computed using the elastic static analysis results multiplied by the deflection amplification factor, $C_d$. This approach for estimating the design displacement is essential and appealing in structural engineering practice when nonlinear response history analysis (NRHA) is not required. Furthermore, building codes stipulate the consideration of accidental torsion effects using accidental eccentricity, whether the buildings are symmetric-plan, or asymmetric-plan. In some model building codes, the accidental eccentricity is further amplified by the torsional amplification factor $A_x$ in order to minimize the discrepancy between statically and dynamically estimated responses. Therefore, this warrants exploration of the reliability of statically estimated design displacements in accordance with the building code requirements. This study uses the discrepancy curves as a way of assessing the reliability of the design displacement estimates resulting from the factors $C_d$ and $A_x$. The discrepancy curves show the exceedance probabilities of the differences between the statically estimated design displacements and NRHA results. The discrepancy curves of 3-story, 9-story, and 20-story example buildings are investigated in this study. The example buildings are steel special moment frames with frequency ratios equal to 0.7, 1.0, 1.3, and 1.6, as well as existing eccentricity ratios ranging from 0% to 30%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.575-585
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• 2020

In this numerical study, the 2D dynamic behavior of a clayey basin and its effect on damage pattern over basin edge are investigated. To attain this goal, a fully nonlinear time domain analysis method has been applied. Then, the fragility curves of the considered two typical industrial structures for that certain point are estimated using the acceleration time histories recorded at each surface point. The results show that the use of the damage related parameters in site effect analyses, instead of amplification curves, can yield more realistic estimation of the basin dynamic response. In a distance about 150 m from outcrop at the basin edge, the differences between fragility curves increase when increasing the distance from outcrop with respect to the reference rock site. Outside this region and towards the basin center, they tend to occur in rather single curves. Furthermore, to connect the structural damage to the basin edge effect, the earthquake demand value at different points for two typical structures was evaluated. It was seen that the probability of occurrence of damage increases over 250 m from outcrop, while the effect of the basin edge was limited to 150 m in case of the basin edge evaluation by using fragility curves.