• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.211-238
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• 2016

The Maximum seismic responses of steel buildings with perimeter moment resisting frames (MRF), modeled as complex MDOF systems, are estimated for several incidence angles of the horizontal components and the critical one is identified. The accuracy of the existing rules to combine the effects of the individual components is also studied. Two and three components are considered. The critical response does not occur for principal components and the corresponding incidence angle varies from one earthquake to another. The critical response can be estimated as 1.40 and 1.10 times that of the principal components, for axial load and interstory shears, respectively. The rules underestimate the axial load but reasonably overestimate the shears. The rules are not always inaccurate in the estimation of the combined response for correlated components. On the other hand, totally uncorrelated (principal) components are not always related to an accurate estimation. The correlation of the individual effects (${\rho}$) may be significant, even for principal components. The rules are not always associated to an inaccurate estimation for large values of ${\rho}$, and small values of ${\rho}$ are not always related to an accurate estimation. Only for perfectly uncorrelated harmonic excitations and elastic analysis of SDOF systems, the individual effects of the components are uncorrelated and the rules accurately estimate the combined response. The degree of correlation of the components, the type of structural system, the response parameter under consideration, the location of the structural member and the level of structural deformation must be considered while estimating the level of underestimation or overestimation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.535-558
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• 2008

This study evaluates seismic performance of the school buildings with the selected template designs in Turkey considering nonlinear behavior of reinforced concrete components. Six school buildings with template designs were selected to represent major percentage of school buildings in medium-size cities located in high seismic region of Turkey. Selection of template designed buildings and material properties were based on field investigation on government owned school buildings in several cities in western part of Turkey. Capacity curves of investigated buildings were determined by pushover analyses conducted in two principal directions. The inelastic dynamic characteristics were represented by equivalent single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems and their seismic displacement demands were calculated under selected ground motions. Seismic performance evaluation was carried out in accordance with recently published Turkish Earthquake Code that has similarities with FEMA-356 guidelines. Reasons of building damages in past earthquakes are examined using the results of performance assessment of investigated buildings. The effects of material quality on seismic performance of school buildings were investigated. The detailed examination of capacity curves and performance evaluation identified deficiencies and possible solutions for template designs.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.163-177
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• 2018

Tornadoes are one of the world's deadliest natural phenomena. They are characterized by short life span and danger. It has been observed through post-damage surveys that localities with large numbers of buildings suffer major damage during a tornado attack resulting in huge loss of life and property. Thus,it is important to study interfering buildings exposed to tornado-like vortices. The present study focuses on external and internal pressures developed on building models exposed to translating tornado-like vortices in the presence of an interfering building model. The effects of translating speed and swirl ratio of a tornado-like vortex on external and internal pressures for a principal building in the vicinity of an interfering building are investigated. Results indicate that external and internal pressures are enhanced or reduced depending on the location of the interfering building with respect to the principal building.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.483-503
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• 2016

This study aims to evaluate seismic performance of existing low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings by comparing their displacement capacities and displacement demands under selected ground motions experienced in Turkey as well as demand spectrum provided in 2007 Turkish Earthquake Code for design earthquake with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for soil class Z3. It should be noted that typical residential buildings are designed according to demand spectrum of 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. Three RC building sets as 2-, 4- and 7-story, are selected to represent reference low-and mid-rise buildings located in the high seismicity region of Turkey. The selected buildings are typical beam-column RC frame buildings with no shear walls. The outcomes of detailed field and archive investigation including approximately 500 real residential RC buildings established building models to reflect existing building stock. Total of 72 3-D building models are constructed from the reference buildings to include the effects of some properties such as structural irregularities, concrete strength, seismic codes, structural deficiencies, transverse reinforcement detailing, and number of story on seismic performance of low and mid-rise RC buildings. Capacity curves of building sets are obtained by nonlinear static analyses conducted in two principal directions, resulting in 144 models. The inelastic dynamic characteristics are represented by "equivalent" Single-Degree-of- Freedom (ESDOF) systems using obtained capacity curves of buildings. Nonlinear time history analysis is used to estimate displacement demands of representative building models idealized with (ESDOF) systems subjected to the selected ground motion records from past earthquakes in Turkey. The results show that the significant number of pre-modern code 4- and 7-story buildings exceeds LS performance level while the modern code 4- and 7-story buildings have better performances. The findings obviously indicate the existence of destructive earthquakes especially for 4- and 7-story buildings. Significant improvements in the performance of the buildings per modern code are also obvious in the study. Almost one third of pre-modern code buildings is exceeding LS level during records in the past earthquakes. This observation also supports the building damages experienced in the past earthquake events in Turkey.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.173-177
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to analyze the principal causes of increases in air temperature on platforms of railway station. We analyzed the distribution of air temperature on Shinkansen platforms at Station 'A' using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). We focused on the factors that influence the temperature dynamics associated with heat generated by trains and station buildings and their effect on the ambient temperature on platforms. In the case of heat generated by trains, air temperature on Shinkansen platforms increased by 4 to 7 degrees compared to when trains generated no heat. When a 50-m high station building was located on the windward side of the platforms, air temperature on Platform X was 2 degrees higher than when the station buildings were absent. Air? temperature on platforms VII to IX increased progressively, and the maximum air temperature on platform VIII was 3 K higher than if station buildings were absent.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2012

As a series of studies about natural ventilation driven by wind in basement parking lots of apartment, the influence of opening size and surrounding buildings on ventilation rate was analyzed. Natural ventilation in underground parking lots almost rely on wind than temperature difference. To investigate natural ventilation driven by wind, wind tunnel tests by using scale model and tracer gas method were conducted. $CO_2$-gas concentration was measured, natural ventilation rates were calculated. The experimental results showed that the natural ventilation rate is more reliable to wind direction and surrounding building than opening size and distance between buildings. It was verified that surrounding buildings play a principal role in increasing air flow rate by accelerating wind speed, and growing turbulence intensity. And it showed that ventilation performance is able to be increased by oblique wind to entrance ramp than head on wind in underground parking lots with surrounding buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1127-1146
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• 2015

The excitation angle or angle of incidence is the angle in which the horizontal seismic components are applied with respect to the principal structural axes during a time history analysis. In this study, numerical simulations and parametric studies are performed for the investigation of the effect of the angle of seismic incidence on the response of adjacent buildings, which may experience structural pounding during strong earthquakes due to insufficient or no separation distance between them. A specially developed software application has been used that implements a simple and efficient methodology, according to which buildings are modelled in three dimensions and potential impacts are simulated using a novel impact model that takes into account the arbitrary location of impacts and the geometry at the point of impact. Two typical multi-storey buildings and a set of earthquake records have been used in the performed analyses. The results of the conducted parametric studies reveal that it is very important to consider the arbitrary direction of the ground motion with respect to the structural axes of the simulated buildings, especially during pounding, since, in many cases, the detrimental effects of pounding become more pronounced for an excitation angle different from the commonly examined 0 or 90 degrees.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2023

After an earthquake, information regarding potential damage to buildings close to the epicenter is very important during the initial emergency response. This study proposes the use of crowdsourced measured acceleration response data collected from smartphones located within buildings to perform system identification of building structures during earthquake excitations, and the feasibility of the proposed approach is studied. The principal advantage of using crowdsourced smartphone data is the potential to determine the condition of millions of buildings without incurring hardware, installation, and long-term maintenance costs. This study's goal is to assess the feasibility of identifying the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of buildings without knowing the orientations and precise locations of the crowds' smartphones in advance. Both input-output and output-only identification methods are used to identify the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of numerical finite element models of a real building structure. The effects of time synchronization and the orientation alignment between nearby smartphones on the identification results are discussed, and the proposed approach's performance is verified using large-scale shake table tests of a scaled steel building. The presented results illustrate the potential of using crowdsourced smartphone data with the proposed approach to identify the lowest fundamental natural frequencies of building structures, information that should be valuable in making emergency response decisions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.373-392
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• 2004

This paper presents a methodology for spatial extrapolation of wind-induced pressure time series from a corner bay to roof locations on a low building away from the corner through the application of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The approach is based on the concept that pressure time series in the far field can be approximated as a linear combination of a series of modes and principal coordinates, where the modes are extracted from the full roof pressure field of an aerodynamically similar building and the principal coordinates are calculated from data at the leading corner bay only. The reliability of the extrapolation for uplift time series in nine bays for a cornering wind direction was examined. It is shown that POD can extrapolate reasonably accurately to bays near the leading corner, given the first three modes, but the extrapolation degrades further from the corner bay as the spatial correlations decrease.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2013

This paper explains the Japanese present situations relevant to the fire resistance performance. Performance-based fire provisions was introduced in 1998 for the first time when the Building Standard Law was amended. However, performance-based fire resistance design had been used since long before the official introduction of performance-based provisions. A Comprehensive Technology Development Project of Ministry of Construction from 1982 to 1986 established a technical basis for performance-based fire safety engineering in Japan. A system of calculation methods for fire resistance verification was prescribed in the Ministry Notification in 2000 utilizing the results of this project as a background. This method, referred to as the Fire Resistance Verification Method (FRVM), is the standard method to verify the fire resistance performance of principal building parts such as columns, beams, and walls of steel, concrete, or wood structured buildings. For tall buildings, however, more advanced method for performance verification is often necessary because new building materials or structural systems are often used for these buildings. An example project of tall building owned by a major newspaper company is presented in this paper. Advanced thermal deformation analysis is executed to secure the fire resistance of the building.