• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.8
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• pp.841-856
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• 1998

During the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake, a reinforced concrete building, called Jeunesse Rokko, suffered intermediate damage by forming a beam-yielding (weak-beam strong-column) mechanism, which has been regarded as the most desirable earthquake resisting mechanism throughout the world. High cost to repair damage at many beam ends and poor appearance expected after the repair work made the owner decide to tear down the building. Nonlinear earthquake response analyses were conducted to simulate the behavior of the building during the earthquake. The influence of non-structural members was considered in the analysis. The calculated results were compared with the observed damage, especially the location of yield hinges and compression failure of spandrel beams, and the degree of cracking in columns and in column-girder connections.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2015

In this paper Fragility Curves (FCs) relevant to existing RC framed building types representative of the Italian building population designed only to vertical load and regular in-plan have been derived from an extensive campaign of non-linear dynamic analyses. In the generation of the FCs, damage states according to the EMS98 scale have been considered while the intensity measure has been defined by adopting an integral parameter, such as the Housner intensity. FCs have been generated by varying different parameters, including building age, number of storeys, presence and position of infill panels, plan dimensions, external beams stiffness and concrete strength. In order to verify the effectiveness of the damage prediction, comparisons were made between the results obtained from the proposed FCs with those deriving from both prominent fragility studies available in the technical literature and damage distributions observed in past earthquakes. Results show that damage grades obtained by adopting the proposed FCs are generally lower than those provided by the other approaches considered. A comparison with real damage data, shows that the proposed FCs generally estimate more severe damage distributions than those observed in past earthquakes, although they give lower differences with respect to the other approaches.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.465-473
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• 2013

Concrete is an outstanding material in terms of its impact and blast resistance performance. However, there a limitation of concrete is its risk of collapse due to the brittle failure and spalling. Increasing the thickness of members was used as a method to enhance the protective performance of concrete, despite the resulting inefficient space. To solve this problem, different types of fiber reinforced concrete were developed. Recently, another type of fiber reinforced concrete is also being developed and applied as a material that offers protection against impacts and blasts by increasing the flexural toughness of concrete. In this study, the test was conducted to evaluate the impact resistance performance of fiber reinforced concrete and mortar according to impact of high-velocity projectile. A concrete T-wall was also tested to evaluate its protective performance from fragment by 155mm-thick artillery shell. The test results revealed that improving flexural strength through fiber reinforcement inhibited cracks and spalling of rear, and spalling of front by high-velocity impact. As such, it is expected to improve the protective performance of the T-wall and reduce the thickness of the member.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1193-1219
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the seismic performance of high-rise reinforced concrete (RC) box-type wall structures commonly used for most residential buildings in Korea. For this purpose, an analytical model was calibrated with the results of the earthquake simulation tests on a 1:5 scale 10-story distorted model. This calibrated model was then transformed to a true model. The performance of the true model in terms of the stiffness, strength, and damage distribution through inelastic energy dissipation was observed with reference to the earthquake simulation test results. The model showed high overstrength factors ranging from 3 to 4. The existence of slab in this box-type wall system changed the main resistance mode in the wall from bending moment to tension/compression coupled moment through membrane actions, and increased the overall resistance capacity by about 25~35%, in comparison with the common design practice of neglecting the slab's existence. The flexibility of foundation, which is also commonly neglected in the engineering design, contributes to 30~50% of the roof drift in the stiff direction containing many walls. The possibility of concrete spalling and reinforcement buckling and fracture under the maximum considered earthquake (MCE) in Korea appears to be very low when compared with the case of the 2010 Concepcion, Chile earthquake.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2023

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the coupled effect of SSI and pounding on dynamic responses of unequal height adjacent buildings with insufficiently separation distance subjected to seismic loading. Numerical investigations were conducted to evaluate effect of the pounding coupling SSI on a Reinforced Concrete Frame Structure system constructed on different soil fields. Adjacent buildings with unequal height, including a 9-storey and a 3-storey reinforced concrete structure, were considered in numerical studies. Pounding force response, time-history and root-mean-square (RMS) of displacement and acceleration with different types of soil and separations were presented. The numerical results indicate that insufficient separation could lead to collisions and generate severe pounding force which could result in acceleration and displacement amplifications. SSI has significant influence of the seismic response of the structures, and higher pounding force were induced by floors with stiffer soil. SSI is reasonable neglected for a structure with a dense soil foundation, whereas SSI should be taken into consideration for dynamic analysis, especially for soft soil base.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2015

In this study, a new RCSF (Reinforced Concrete Steel Frame) external connection method is proposed for seismic strengthening of medium-and low-rise reinforced concrete buildings. The RCSF method, proposed in this study, is capable of carrying out the seismic retrofitting construction while residents can live inside structures. The method is one of the strength design approach by retrofit which can easily increase the ultimate lateral load capacity of concrete buildings controlled by shear. The pseudo-dynamic test, designed using a existing school building in Korea, was carried out in order to verify the seismic strengthening effects of the proposed method in terms of the maximum load carrying capacity and ductility. Test results revealed that the proposed RCSF strengthening method installed in RC frame enhanced conspicuously the strength and displacement capacities, and the method can resist markedly under the large scaled earthquake intensity level.

• 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.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.487-498
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• 2023

The present study investigated the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with an ultrahigh performance concrete (UHPC) panel having various thicknesses. Two fabrication methods were introduced in this study; one was the direct casting of UHPC onto the bottom surface of the RC beams (I-series), and the other was the attachment of a prefabricated UHPC panel using an adhesive (E-series). UHPC panels having thicknesses of 10, 30, 50, and 70 mm were applied to RC beams, and these specimens were subjected to four-point loading to assess the effect of the UHPC thickness on the flexural strengthening of RC beams. The test results indicated that the peak strength and initial stiffness were vastly enhanced with an increase in the thickness of the UHPC panel, showing an improved energy dissipation capacity. In particular, the peak strength of the E-series specimens was higher than that of I-series specimens, showing high compatibility between the RC beam and the UHPC panel. The experimental test results were comparatively explored with a discussion of numerical analysis. Numerical analysis results showed that the predictions are in fair agreement with experimental results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.575-588
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• 2019

Seismic design method based on bearing capacity has been widely adopted in building codes around the world, however, damage and collapse state of structure under strong earthquake can not be reflected accurately. This paper aims to present a deformation-based seismic design method based on the research of RC component deformation index limit, which combines with the feature of Chinese building codes. In the proposed method, building performance is divided into five levels and components are classified into three types according to their importance. Five specific design approaches, namely, "Elastic Design", "Unyielding Design", "Limit Design", "Minimum Section Design" and "Deformation Assessment", are defined and used in different scenarios to prove whether the seismic performance objectives are attained. For the components which exhibit ductile failure, deformation of components under strong earthquake are obtained quantitatively in order to identify the damage state of the components. For the components which present brittle shear failure, their performance is guaranteed by bearing capacity. As a case study, seismic design of an extremely irregular twin-tower high rise building was carried out according to the proposed method. The results evidenced that the damage and anti-collapse ability of structure were estimated and controlled by both deformation and bearing capacity.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.479-501
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• 2014

This paper presents the improvement of the EC-2 and EHE-08 shear strength formulations for concrete beams with shear reinforcement. The employed method is based on the genetic programming (GP) technique, which is configured to generate symbolic regression from a set of experimental data by considering the interactions among precision, accuracy, safety and simplicity. The size effect and the influence of the amount of shear reinforcement are examined. To develop and verify the models, 257 experimental tests on concrete beams from the literature are used. Three expressions of considerable simplicity, which significantly improve the shear strength prediction with respect to the formulations of the different studied codes, are proposed.