• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.599-620
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• 2011

The investigation on possible causes of failures related to documented collapses is a complicated issue, primarily due to the scarcity and inadequacy of information available. Although several studies have tried to understand which are the inherent structural deficiencies or circumstances associated to failure of the main structural elements in a reinforced concrete frame, to the authors knowledge a uniform approach for the evaluation building static vulnerability, does not exist yet. This paper investigates, by means of a detailed case study, the potential failure mechanisms of an existing reinforced concrete building. The linear elastic analysis for the three-dimensional building model gives an insight on the working conditions of the structural elements, demonstrating the relevance of a number of structural faults that could sensibly lower the structure's safety margin. Next, the building's bearing capacity is studied by means of parametric nonlinear analysis performed at the element's level. It is seen that, depending on material properties, concrete strength and steel yield stress, the failure hierarchy could be dominated by either brittle or ductile mechanisms.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2020

In different high seismic regions around the world, many non-ductile existing reinforced concrete frame buildings, built without adequate seismic detailing requirements, have been damaged or collapsed after past earthquakes. The assessment and the retrofit of these non-ductile concrete structures is crucial theme of research for all the scientific community of engineers. In particular, a careful assessment of the existing building is fundamental for understanding the failure mechanisms that govern the collapse of the structure or the achievement of the recommended limit states. Based on the seismic assessment, the best retrofit strategy can be designed and applied to the structure. A school building located in Avellino province (Italy) is the case study. The analysis of seismic vulnerability carried out on the mentioned building has highlighted deficiencies in both static and seismic load conditions. The retrofit of the building has been designed based on different retrofit options in order to show the real retrofit design developed from the engineers to achieve the seismic safety of the building. The retrofit costs associated to structural operations are calculated for each case and have been summed up to the costs of the in situ tests. The paper shows a real retrofit design case study in which the best solution is chosen based on the results in terms of structural performance and cost among the different retrofit options.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.613-625
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• 2021

Non-seismically designed eccentric reinforced concrete beam-column joints were extensively used in existing reinforced concrete frame buildings, which were found to be vulnerable to seismic action in many incidences. To provide a fundamental understanding of the seismic performance and failure mechanism of the joints, three 2/3-scale exterior beam-column joints with non-seismically designed details were cast and tested under reversed cyclic loads simulating earthquake excitation. In this investigation, particular emphasis was given on the effects of the eccentricity between the centerlines of the beam and the column. It is shown that the eccentricity had significant effects on the damage characteristics, shear strength, and displacement ductility of the specimens. In addition, shear deformation and the strain of joint hoops were found to concentrate on the eccentric face of the joint. The results demonstrated that the specimen with an eccentricity of 1/4 column width failed in a brittle manner with premature joint shear failure, while the other specimens with less or no eccentricity failed in a ductile manner with joint shear failure after beam flexural yielding. Test results are compared with those predicted by three seismic design codes and two non-seismic design codes. In general, the codes do not accurately predict the shear strength of the eccentric joints with non-seismic details.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Reinforced concrete (RC) moment frames are used as lateral seismic load resisting systems in mid- and high-rise buildings in different regions of the world. Based on the seismic design provisions and construction details presented in design codes, RC frames with different levels of ductility (ordinary, intermediate, and special) can be designed and constructed. In Iran, there are RC buildings with various uses which have been constructed based on different editions of design codes. The seismic performance of RC structures (particularly moment frames) in real seismic events is of great importance. In this paper, the observations made on damaged RC moment frames after the destructive Sarpol-e Zahab earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.3 are reported. Different levels of damage from the development of cracks in the structural and non-structural elements to the total collapse of buildings were observed. Furthermore, undesirable failure modes which are not expected in ductile seismic-resistant buildings were frequently observed in the damaged buildings. The RC moment frames built based on the previous editions of the design codes showed partial or total collapse in this seismic event. The extensive destruction of RC moment frames compared with the other structural systems (such as braced steel frames and confined masonry buildings) was attributed not only to the deficiencies in the construction practice of these buildings but also to the design procedure. In addition, the failure and collapse of masonry infills in RC moment frames were frequent modes of failure in this seismic event. In this paper, the main reasons related to design practice which led to extensive damage in the RC moment frames and their collapse are addressed.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.11-24
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• 2011

A real-time hybrid test of a 3 story-3 bay reinforced concrete frame which is divided into numerical and physical substructure models under uniaxial earthquake excitation was run using a fixed iteration implicit HHT time integration method. The first story inner non-ductile column was selected as the physical substructure model, and uniaxial earthquake excitation was applied to the numerical model until the specimen failed due to severe damage. A finite-element analysis program, Mercury, was newly developed and optimized for a real-time hybrid test. The drift ratio based on the top horizontal displacement of the physical substructure model was compared with the result of a numerical simulation by OpenSees and the result of a shaking table test. The experiment in this paper is one of the most complex real-time hybrid tests, and the description of the hardware, algorithm and models is presented in detail. If there is an improvement in the numerical model, the evaluation of the tangent stiffness matrix of the physical substructure model in the finite element analysis program and better software to reduce the computational time of the element state determination for the force-based beam-column element, then the comparison with the results of the real-time hybrid test and the shaking table test deserves to make a recommendation. In addition, for the goal of a "Numerical simulation of the complex structures under dynamic loading", the real time hybrid test has enough merit as an alternative to dynamic experiments of large and complex structures.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2001

Reinforced concrete frame buildings in regions of low to moderate seismicity are typically designed only for gravity loads with non-seismic detailing provisions of the code. These buildings possess strong beam-weak column, which brings about the brittle structural performance like the column sidesway failure mechanism during the strong lateral load. The objective of this paper is to enhance the column strength and deformation capacity for reconfiguring the structural failure mode by averting a column soft-story collapse and moving to a more ductile beam-sides way mechanism suing new reinforcing materials. Aramid fiber sheet and reinforcing rod-composite materials was used for this purpose. The column was modeled by the 2/3 scale experimental specimen retested. According to the concept of the capacity design, the damaged column was strengthened by the column jacketing using new reinfocing materials such as rod-composite materials. In conclusion, the improvement of the flexural strength is observed and the capacity of the energy dissipation and the ductility is enhanced, too.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.3-14
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• 2012

This paper describes experimental results on the seismic performance of SHCC (strain-hardening cement composite) infill wall for improving damage tolerance capacity of non-ductile frame. To investigate the effect of tensile strain capacity and cracking behavior of SHCC materials on the shear behavior of SHCC infill wall, three infill walls were fabricated and tested under cyclic loading. The test parameter in this study is a type of cement composites; concrete and SHCCs. The two types of SHCC materials were prepared for infill walls. In order to induce crack damages into the mid-span of the infill wall, each infill wall had two 100-mm-deep-notches on both sides. Test results indicated that SHCC infill walls showed superior crack control capacities and much larger drift ratios at the peak loads than RC (reinforced concrete) infill wall, as expected. In particular, due to the bridging actions of the reinforcing fibers, SHCC matrix used in this study would delay the stiffness degradation of infill wall after the first inclined cracking. Moreover, from the damage classes based on the cracks' maximum width in the infill walls, it was observed that PIW-SHD specimen possessed nearly threefold seismic capacities compared to PIW-SLD specimen. Also, from the results on the strain of diagonal reinforcements, it can be concluded that the SHCC matrix would resist a part of tensile stresses transferred along steel rebar in the infill wall.