• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.215-230
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• 2010

The main objectives of this work were to investigate the effects of the nonlinear behavior of the isolation pads on the seismic response of bridges with rubber bearings, and to identify when base isolation improved their seismic performance. To achieve these objectives a parametric study was conducted designing a set of bridges for three different soil types and varying the number of spans, span lengths, and pier heights. The seismic responses (accelerations, displacements and pier seismic forces) were evaluated for three different structural models subjected to three earthquakes with different dynamic characteristics. The first represented bridges without base isolation; the second corresponded to the same bridges including now rubber bearings as an isolation system, with linear elastic behavior that shifted the natural period of the bridge by a factor of 2 to 4. In the third model the seismic response of bridges supported on lead-Rubber bearings was studied accounting for the nonlinear behavior of the lead. The results show clearly the importance of the nonlinear behavior on the seismic performance of the bridges.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.179-191
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• 2002

This paper presents a systematic approach to the seismic nonlinear analysis and retrofit strategies for existing bridges with isolation system using retrofit slate function newly proposed in this study. A seismic retrofit scheme using sliding base isolation system was presented to reduce the seismic hazard for bridge structures. In this study, two types of isolation systems such as lead bearings and sliding isolators were used. The behavior of sliding isolators was modeled by a triaxial interaction model. And three types of earthquakes such as El Centro, San Fernando, and the artificial were used as earthquake ground excitations. Seismic response analyses of the bridge before and after retrofit were effectively carried out by using a three-dimensional nonlinear seismic analysis program, IDARC-Bridge. Also, this paper proposes a retrofit state function for easily representing the efficiency of a retrofit scheme.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.600-606
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• 2019

Studies on the application of the lead rubber bearing (LRB) isolation system to nuclear power plants are being carried out as one of the measures to improve seismic performance. Nuclear power plants with isolation systems require seismic probabilistic safety assessments, for which the seismic fragility of the structures, systems, and components needs be calculated, including for beyond design basis earthquakes. To this end, seismic response analyses are required, where it can be seen that the behaviors of the isolation system components govern the overall seismic response of an isolated plant. The numerical model of the LRB used in these seismic response analyses plays an important role, but in most cases, the extreme performance of the LRB has not been well studied. The current work therefore develops an extreme nonlinear numerical model that can express the seismic response of the LRB for beyond design basis earthquakes. A full-scale LRB was fabricated and dynamically tested with various input conditions, and test results confirmed that the developed numerical model better represents the behavior of the LRB over previous models. Subsequent seismic response analyses of isolated nuclear power plants using the model developed here are expected to provide more accurate results for seismic probabilistic safety assessments.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2016

Seismic isolation is often used in protecting mission-critical structures including hospitals, data centers, telecommunication buildings, etc. Such structures typically house vibration-sensitive equipment which has to provide continued service but may fail in case sustained accelerations during earthquakes exceed threshold limit values. Thus, peak floor acceleration is one of the two main parameters that control the design of such structures while the other one is peak base displacement since the overall safety of the structure depends on the safety of the isolation system. And in case peak base displacement exceeds the design base displacement during an earthquake, rupture and/or buckling of isolators as well as bumping against stops around the seismic gap may occur. Therefore, obtaining accurate peak floor accelerations and peak base displacement is vital. However, although nominal design values for isolation system and superstructure parameters are calculated in order to meet target peak design base displacement and peak floor accelerations, their actual values may potentially deviate from these nominal design values. In this study, the sensitivity of the seismic performance of structures equipped with linear and nonlinear seismic isolation systems to the aforementioned potential deviations is assessed in the context of a benchmark shear building under different earthquake records with near-fault and far-fault characteristics. The results put forth the degree of sensitivity of peak top floor acceleration and peak base displacement to superstructure parameters including mass, stiffness, and damping and isolation system parameters including stiffness, damping, yield strength, yield displacement, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1439-1461
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• 2015

Design criteria, modeling rules, and analysis principles of seismic isolation systems have already found place in important building codes and standards such as the Uniform Building Code and ASCE/SEI 7-05. Although real behaviors of isolation systems composed of high damping or lead rubber bearings are nonlinear, equivalent linear models can be obtained using effective stiffness and damping which makes use of linear seismic analysis methods for seismic-isolated buildings possible. However, equivalent linear modeling and analysis may lead to errors in seismic response terms of multi-story buildings and thus need to be assessed comprehensively. This study investigates the accuracy of equivalent linear modeling via numerical experiments conducted on generic five-story three dimensional seismic-isolated buildings. A wide range of nonlinear isolation systems with different characteristics and their equivalent linear counterparts are subjected to historical earthquakes and isolation system displacements, top floor accelerations, story drifts, base shears, and torsional base moments are compared. Relations between the accuracy of the estimates of peak structural responses from equivalent linear models and typical characteristics of nonlinear isolation systems including effective period, rigid-body mode period, effective viscous damping ratio, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio are established. Influence of biaxial interaction and plan eccentricity are also examined.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.293-311
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• 2016

A parametric study on the nonlinear seismic response of isolated reinforced concrete structural frame is presented. Three prototype frames designed according to the 1954 Hellenic seismic code, with number of floor ranging from 1 to 3 were considered. These low rise frames are representative of many existing reinforced concrete buildings in Greece. The efficacy of the implementation of both lead rubber bearings (LRB) and friction pendulum isolators (FPI) base isolation systems were examined. The selection of the isolation devices was made according to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$, where Tis is the period of the base isolation system and $T_{bf}$ is the period of the fixed-base building. The main purpose of this comprehensive study is to investigate the effect of the isolation system period on the seismic response of inadequately designed low rise buildings. Thus, the implementation of isolation systems which correspond to the ratio $T_{is}/T_{fb}$ that values from 3 to 5 is studied. Nonlinear time history analyses were performed to investigate the response of the isolated structures using a set of three natural seismic ground motions. The evaluation of each retrofitting case was made in terms of storey drift and storey shear force while in view of serviceability it was made in terms of storey acceleration. Finally, the maximum developed displacements and the residual displacements of the isolation systems are presented.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.639-656
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• 2015

Seismic isolation devices are commonly used to mitigate damages caused by seismic responses of structures. More damages are created due to progressive collapse in structures. Therefore, evaluating the impact of the isolation systems to enhance progressive collapse-resisting capacity is very important. In this study, the effect of lead rubber bearing isolation system to increase the resistance of structures against progressive collapse was evaluated. Concrete moment resisting frames were used in both the fixed and base-isolated model structures. Then, progressive collapse-resisting capacity of frames was investigated using the push down nonlinear static analysis under gravity loads that specified in GSA guideline. Nonlinear dynamic analysis was performed to consider dynamic effects column removal under earthquake. The results of the push down analysis are highly dependent on location of removal column and floor number of buildings. Also, seismic isolation system does not play an effective role in increasing the progressive collapse-resisting capacities of structures under gravity loads. Base isolation helps to localize failures and prevented from spreading it to intact span under seismic loads.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.5
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• pp.405-418
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• 2023

This study focused on the effectiveness of seismic isolation technique in case of a reinforced concrete structure with soft story defined as the stiffness irregularity between adjacent stories. In this context, a seismically isolated 3-story reinforced concrete structure was analyzed by gradually increasing the first story height (3.0, 4.5, and 6.0 m). The seismic isolation system of the structure is assumed to be composed of lead rubber bearings (LRB). In the analyses, isolators were modeled by both deteriorating (temperature-dependent analyses) and non-deteriorating (bounding analyses) hysteretic representations. The deterioration in strength of isolator is due to temperature rise in the lead core during cyclic motion. The ground motion pairs used in bi-directional nonlinear dynamic analyses were selected and scaled according to codified procedures. In the analyses, different isolation periods (Tiso) and characteristic strength to weight ratios (Q/W) were considered in order to determine the sensitivity of structural response to the isolator properties. Response quantities under consideration are floor accelerations, and interstory drift ratios. Analyses results are compared for both hysteretic representations of LRBs. Results are also used to assess the significance of the ratio between the horizontal stiffnesses of soft story and isolation system. It is revealed that seismic isolation is a viable method to reduce structural damage in structures with soft story.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.89-95
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• 2013

Structures in a nuclear power system are designed to be elastic even under an earthquake excitation. However a structural component such as an isolator shows inelastic behavior inherently. For the seismic assessment of nonlinear structures, response history analysis should be performed. In this study, the response of base isolation system was analyzed by response history analysis for the seismic performance assessment. Firstly, several seismic assessment criteria for a nuclear power plant structure were reviewed for the nonlinear response history analysis. Based on these criteria, the spectrum matched ground motion generation method modifying a seed earthquake ground motion time history was adjusted. Using these spectrum matched accelerograms, the distribution of displacement responses of the simplified base isolation system was evaluated. The resulting seismic responses excited by the modified ground motion time histories and the synthesized time history generated by stochastic approach were compared. And the response analysis of the base isolation system considering the different intensities in each orthogonal direction was performed.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2013

This study presents application effects of hybrid seismic isolation system to realize high seismic performance for low-rise lightweight buildings through a non-linear analysis and onsite experiments. The complex seismic isolation system applied in this study is a method of mixing sliding bearing and laminated rubber bearing in order to overcome limitation of laminated rubber bearing in increasing natural period of the whole seismic isolation system. As a result of the non-linear analysis, seismic isolation buildings designed with complex seismic isolation system are safe because its maximum response displacement is within allowable design displacement even for a strong earthquake which rarely occurs and its maximum response shear is less than design seismic force. As a result of the onsite experiment, the rigidity of seismic isolation stories corresponds to approximately 95.8% of the design equivalent stiffness value. This indicates that actual properties of the whole seismic isolation system correspond to design values.