• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2019

In 2017 Pohang Earthquake, a number of residential buildings with pilotis at their first level were severely damaged. In this study, the results of an analytical investigation on the seismic performance and structural damage of two bearing wall buildings with pilotis are presented. The vibration mode and lateral force-resisting mechanism of the buildings with vertical and plan irregularity were investigated through elastic analysis. Then, based on the investigations, methods of nonlinear modeling for walls and columns at the piloti level were proposed. By performing nonlinear static and dynamic analyses, structural damages of the walls and columns at the piloti level under 2017 Pohang Earthquake were predicted. The results show that the area and arrangement of walls in the piloti level significantly affected the seismic safety of the buildings. Initially, the lateral resistance of the piloti story was dominated mainly by the walls resisting in-plane shear. After shear cracking and yielding of the walls, the columns showing double-curvature flexural behavior contributed significantly to the residual strength and ductility.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

Most commercial buildings among existing RC buildings in Korea have a multi-story wall-frame structure where RC shear wall is commonly used as its core at stairways or elevators. The members of the existing middle and low-rise wall-frame buildings are likely arranged in ordinary details considering building occupancy, and the importance and difficulty of member design. This is because there are few limitations, considerations, and financial burdens on the code for designing members with ordinary details. Compared with the intermediate or unique details, the ductility and overstrength are insufficient. Furthermore, the behavior of the member can be shear-dominated. Since shear failure in vertical members can cause a collapse of the entire structure, nonlinear characteristics such as shear strength and stiffness deterioration should be adequately reflected in the analysis model. With this background, an 8-story RC wall-frame building was designed as a building frame system with ordinary shear walls, and the effect of reflecting the shear failure mode of columns and walls on the collapse mechanism was investigated. As a result, the shear failure mode effect on the collapse mechanism was evident in walls, not columns. Consequently, it is recommended that the shear behavior characteristics of walls are explicitly considered in the analysis of wall-frame buildings with ordinary details.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.319-330
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• 2022

Retrofit of soft-story buildings due to seismic loads using Gap-Inclined-Brace (GIB) system is considered a new retrofit technique that aims to maintain both strength and stiffness of structure. In addition, it provides more ductility and less P-delta effect, and subsequently better performance is observed. In this paper, the effect of the eccentricity between GIB and the retrofitted column due to installation on the efficiency of the retrofitting system is studied. In addition, a modification in the determination method of GIB properties is introduced to reduce the eccentricity effect. Also, the effect of GIB system on the seismic response of mid-rise buildings with different heights considering soft-story at various heights has been studied. A numerical model is developed to study the impact of such system on the response of retrofitted soft-story buildings under the action of seismic loads. To achieve that goal, this model is used to perform a numerical investigation, by considering five case study scenarios represent several locations of soft-story of two mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings. At first, Non-linear static pushover analysis was carried out to develop the capacity curves for case studies. Then, Non-linear time history analyses using ten earthquake records with five peak ground accelerations is performed for each case study scenario before and after retrofitting with GIB. The results show that large GIB eccentricity reduce the ultimate lateral resistance and deformation capacity of the retrofitting system. Moreover, the higher the retrofitted building, the more deformation capacity is observed but without significant increase in ultimate lateral resistance.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.165-172
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• 2002

Generally, the steel rigid frame has been analyzed using finite element analysis tools. While many efforts have been poured into the understanding and accurate prediction for the nonlinear behavior of the columns and beam-columns connections, the base of the columns are modeled as simply hinged or fixed. However, the base of the steel columns practically is neither fixed not hinged. It behaves as semi-rigid. In this paper, the supports of the columns we modeled as semi-rigid and the importance of such approach in moment-resisting columns is evaluated. Two typical buildings designed by the US specification are modeled and analyzed by the finite element based on stiffness method and flexibility method. The column bases of three-story buildings are modeled as rotational springs with a varying degree of stiffness and strength that simulates the semi-rigidity of the base. Depending on the degree of stiffness and strength, the semi-rigidity varies from the hinged to the fixed. Buildings with semi-rigid column bases behaves similarly to the building with fixed bases. It has been numerically observed through the pushover and nonlinear time history analyses that the decrease of the stiffness of the column base induces the rotational demand on the int air beams. an increase of rotation demands on the first store connections and lead to a soft-story mechanists Due often to the construction and environmental effects, undesired reduction of column base stiffness may cause an increase of rotation demands on the first store connections and lead to a soft-story mechanism.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.143-159
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• 2017

A probabilistic fragility assessment procedure is developed in this paper to predict risks of damage arising from seismic loading to the two-cell RC box tunnel. Especially, the paper focuses on establishing a simplified methodology to derive fragility curves which are an indispensable ingredient of seismic fragility assessment. In consideration of soil-structure interaction (SSI) effect, the ground response acceleration method for buried structure (GRAMBS) is used in the proposed approach to estimate the dynamic response behavior of the structures. In addition, the damage states of tunnels are identified by conducting the pushover analyses and Latin Hypercube sampling (LHS) technique is employed to consider the uncertainties associated with design variables. To illustrate the concepts described, a numerical analysis is conducted and fragility curves are developed for a large set of artificially generated ground motions satisfying a design spectrum. The seismic fragility curves are represented by two-parameter lognormal distribution function and its two parameters, namely the median and log-standard deviation, are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) method.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.201-216
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• 2014

In this paper the vulnerability of the confined masonry buildings is evaluated analytically. The proposed approach includes the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the two-story confined masonry buildings with common plan as a reference structure. In this approach the damage level is calculated based on the probability of exceedance of loss vs a specified ground motion in the form of fragility curves. The fragility curves of confined masonry wall buildings are presented in two levels of limit states corresponding to elastic and maximum strength versus PGA based on analytical method. In this regard the randomness of parameters indicating the characteristics of the building structure as well as ground motion is considered as likely uncertainties. In order to develop the analytical fragility curves the proposed analytical models of confined masonry walls in a previous investigation of the authors, are used to specify the damage indices and responses of the structure. In order to obtain damage indices a series of pushover analyses are performed, and to identify the seismic demand a series of nonlinear dynamic analysis are conducted. Finally by considering various mechanical and geometric parameters of masonry walls and numerous accelerograms, the fragility curves with assuming a log normal distribution of data are derived based on capacity and demand of building structures in a probabilistic approach.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.631-644
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• 2014

Seismic assessment and retrofitting of existing structure is a complicated work that typically requires more sophisticated analyses than performing a new design. Before the implementation of a Code for seismic design of buildings (GBJ 11-89), not enough attention has been paid on seismic performance of structures and a great part of the existing reinforced concrete structures built in China have been poorly designed according to the new version of the same code (GB 50011-2010). This paper presents a case study of seismic assessment of a non-seismically designed reinforced concrete building in China. The structural responses are evaluated using the nonlinear static procedure (the so-called pushover analysis), which requires its introduction within a process that allows the estimation of the demand, against which the capacity is then compared with. The capacity of all structural members can be determined following the design code. Based on the structural performance, suitable retrofitting strategies are selected and implemented to the existing system. The retrofitted structure is analyzed again to check the effectiveness of the rehabilitation. Different types of retrofitting strategy are discussed and classified according to their complexity and benefits. Finally, a proper intervention methodology is utilized to upgrade this typical low-rise non-ductile building.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.271-284
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• 2017

This paper presents a multimodal adaptive nonlinear static method of analysis that, differently from the nonlinear static methods suggested in seismic codes, does not require the definition of the equivalent Single-Degree-Of-Freedom (SDOF) system to evaluate the seismic response of structures. First, the proposed method is formulated for the assessment of r.c. plane frames and then it is extended to 3D framed structures. Furthermore, the proposed nonlinear static approach is re-elaborated as a displacement-based design method that does not require the use of the behaviour factor and takes into account explicitly the plastic deformation capacity of the structure. Numerical applications to r.c. plane frames and to a 3D framed structure with inplan irregularity are carried out to illustrate the attractive features as well as the limitations of the proposed method. Furthermore, the numerical applications evidence the uncertainty about the suitability of the displacement demand prediction obtained by the nonlinear static methods commonly adopted.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.689-699
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• 2017

An energy-based approach for determining earthquake safety of reinforced concrete frame structures is presented. The developed approach is based on comparison of plastic energy capacities of the structures with plastic energy demands obtained for selected earthquake records. Plastic energy capacities of the selected reinforced concrete frames are determined graphically by analyzing plastic hinge regions with the developed equations. Seven earthquake records are chosen to perform the nonlinear time history analyses. Earthquake plastic energy demands are determined from nonlinear time history analyses and hysteretic behavior of earthquakes is converted to monotonic behavior by using nonlinear moment-rotation relations of plastic hinges and plastic axial deformations in columns. Earthquake safety of selected reinforced concrete frames is assessed by using plastic energy capacity graphs and earthquake plastic energy demands. The plastic energy dissipation capacities of the frame structures are examined whether these capacities can withstand the plastic energy demands for selected earthquakes or not. The displacements correspond to the mean plastic energy demands are obtained quite close to the displacements determined by using the procedures given in different seismic design codes.

• 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.