• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.113-128
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• 2002

The performance of steel MRF with rigid connections, proportioned by adopting different capacity design criteria, is evaluated in order to highlight the effectiveness of static non-linear procedure in predicting the structural seismic behavior. In the framework of the performance-based design, some considerations are made on the basis of the results obtained by both dynamic time histories and push-over analyses, particularly with reference to the damage level and the structure ability to withstand a strong earthquake.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.513-528
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• 2018

A typical viable technique to decrease the seismic response of liquid storage tanks is to isolate them at the base. Base-isolation systems are an efficient and feasible solution to reduce the vulnerability of structures in high seismic risk zones. Nevertheless, when liquid storage tanks are under long-period shaking, the base-isolation systems could have different impacts. These kinds of earthquakes can damage the tanks readily. Hence, the seismic behaviour and vibration of cylindrical liquid storage tanks, subjected to earthquakes, is of paramount importance, and it is investigated in this paper. The Finite Element Method is used to evaluate seismic response in addition to the reduction of excessive liquid sloshing in the tank when subjected to the long-period ground motion. The non-linear stress-strain behaviour pertaining to polymers and rubbers is implemented while non-linear contact elements are employed to describe the 3-D surface-to-surface contact. Therefore, Nonlinear Procedures are used to investigate the fluid-structure interactions (FSI) between liquid and the tank wall while there is incompressible liquid. Part I, examines the effect of the flexibility of the isolation system and the tank aspect ratio (height to radius) on the tank wall radial displacements of the tank wall and the liquid sloshing heights. Maximum stress and base shear force for various aspect ratios and different base-isolators, which are subjected to three seismic conditions, will be discussed in Part II. It is shown that the composite-base isolator is much more effective than other isolators due to its high flexibility and strength combined. Moreover, the base isolators may decrease the maximum level pertaining to radial displacement.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.267-277
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• 2017

Base-isolation is now being adopted as a retrofitting strategy to improve seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete (r.c.) framed structures subjected to far-fault earthquakes. However, the increase in deformability of a base-isolated framed building may lead to amplification in the structural response under the long-duration horizontal pulses of high-magnitude near-fault earthquakes, which can become critical once the strength level of a fire-weakened r.c. superstructure is reduced. The aim of the present work is to investigate the nonlinear seismic response of fire-damaged r.c. framed structures retrofitted by base-isolation. For this purpose, a five-storey r.c. framed building primarily designed (as fixed-base) in compliance with a former Italian seismic code for a medium-risk zone, is to be retrofitted by the insertion of elastomeric bearings to meet the requirements of the current Italian code in a high-risk seismic zone. The nonlinear seismic response of the original (fixed-base) and retrofitted (base-isolated) test structures in a no fire situation are compared with those in the event of fire in the superstructure, where parametric temperature-time curves are defined at the first level, the first two and the upper levels. A lumped plasticity model describes the inelastic behaviour of the fire-damaged r.c. frame members, while a nonlinear force-displacement law is adopted for the elastomeric bearings. The average root-mean-square deviation of the observed spectrum from the target design spectrum together with a suitable intensity measure are chosen to select and scale near- and far-fault earthquakes on the basis of the design hypotheses adopted.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.317-335
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• 2016

Concentrically braced steel frames (CBFs) can be optimised during the seismic design process by using lateral loading distributions derived from the concept of uniform damage distribution. However, it is not known how such structures are affected by uncertainties. This study aims to quantify and manage the effects of structural and ground-motion uncertainty on the seismic performance of optimum and conventionally designed CBFs. Extensive nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed on 5, 10 and 15-storey frames to investigate the effects of storey shear-strength and damping ratio uncertainties by using the Monte Carlo simulation method. For typical uncertainties in conventional steel frames, optimum design frames always exhibit considerably less inter-storey drift and cumulative damage compared to frames designed based on IBC-2012. However, it is noted that optimum structures are in general more sensitive to the random variation of storey shear-strength. It is shown that up to 50% variation in damping ratio does not affect the seismic performance of the optimum design frames compared to their code-based counterparts. Finally, the results indicate that the ground-motion uncertainty can be efficiently managed by optimizing CBFs based on the average of a set of synthetic earthquakes representing a design spectrum. Compared to code-based design structures, CBFs designed with the proposed average patterns exhibit up to 54% less maximum inter-storey drift and 73% less cumulative damage under design earthquakes. It is concluded that the optimisation procedure presented is reliable and should improve the seismic performance of CBFs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.338-344
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• 2003

The seismic analysis method of spent fuel storage structures for PHWR plant is introduced in comparison with the method for PWR plant. Investigating the structural characteristics of the storage structures, the former is vertically stacked fuel storage trays, while the latter is welded honeycomb type structure. However, as both structures are submerged and free standing, the analysis methods to anticipate the seismic response of both structures are complicated. For the better estimation of actual seismic response, how to model the dynamic properties and the structural behaviour is the key issue. In this paper, the overall procedures of the seismic modelling and stability check for seismic sliding and overturning of the two different storage structures are discussed in the viewpoint of analysis reliability

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.689-707
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• 2008

This study presents a method to evaluate the seismic risk of an extradosed bridge with seismic isolators of lead rubber bearings (LRBs), and also to show the effectiveness of the LRB isolators on the extradosed bridge, which is one of the relatively flexible and lightly damped structures in terms of seismic risk. Initially, the seismic vulnerability of a structure is evaluated, and then the seismic hazard of a specific site is rated using an earthquake data set and seismic hazard maps in Korea. Then, the seismic risk of the structure is assessed. The nonlinear seismic analyses are carried out to consider plastic deformation of bridge columns and the nonlinear characteristics of soil foundation. To describe the nonlinear behaviour of a column, the ductility demand is adopted, and the moment-curvature relation of a column is assumed to be bilinear hysteretic. The fragility curves are represented as a log-normal distribution function for column damage, movement of superstructure, and cable yielding. And the seismic hazard at a specific site is estimated using the available seismic hazard maps. The results show that in seismically-isolated extradosed bridges under earthquakes, the effectiveness of the isolators is much more noticeable in the columns than the cables and girders.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.569-585
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• 2016

This paper highlights a case study that investigates the behaviour of existing bridge, West Terrace Bridge, induced by horizontal seismic loading. Unfortunately the lack of past information related to seismic activity within the NSW region has made it difficult to understand better the capacity of the structure if Earthquake occurs. The research was conducted through the University of Western Sydney in conjunction with Railcorp Australia, as part of disaster reduction preparedness program. The focus of seismic analyses was on the assessment of stress behaviour, induced by cyclic horizontal/vertical displacements, within the concrete slab and steel truss of the bridge under various Earthquake Year Return Intervals (YRI) of 1-100, 1-200, 1-250, 1-500, 1-800, 1-1000, 1-1500, 1-2000 and 1-2500. Furthermore the stresses and displacements were rigorously analysed through a parametric study conducted using different boundary conditions. The numerical analysis of the concrete slab and steel truss were performed through the finite element software, ABAQUS. The field measurements and observation had been used to validate the results drawn from the finite element simulation. It was illustrated that under a YRI of 1/1000 the bottom chord of the steel truss failed as the stress induced surpassed the ultimate stress capacity and the horizontal displacement exceeded the allowable displacement measured in the field observations whereas the vertical displacement remained within the previously observed limitations. Furthermore the parametric studies in this paper demonstrate that a change in boundary conditions alleviated the stress distribution throughout the structure allowing it to withstand a greater load induced by the earthquake YRI but ultimately failed when the maximum earthquake loading was applied. Therefore it was recommended to provide a gap of 50mm on the end of the concrete slab to allow the structure to displace without increasing the stress in the structure. Finally, this study has proposed a design chart to showcase the failure mode of the bridge when subjected to seismic loading.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.19-34
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• 2017

The widespread damage to steel Moment Resisting Frames (MRFs) in past major earthquakes have underscored the need to understand the nonlinear inelastic behaviour of such systems. To assess the seismic performance of steel MRF, it is essential to model the nonlinear force-deformation behaviour of beam to column joints. To determine the extent of inelasticity in a beam to column joint, nonlinear finite element analysis is generally carried out, which is computationally involved and demanding. In order to obviate the need of such elaborate analyses, a simplistic method to predict the force-deformation behaviour is required. In this study, a simple, mechanics driven, hand calculation method is proposed to obtain the forcedeformation behaviour of strong axis beam to column moment joints. The force-deformation behaviour for twenty-five interior and exterior beam to column joints, having column to beam strength ratios ranging from 1.2 to 10.99 and 2.4 to 22, respectively, have been obtained. The force-deformation behaviour predicted using the proposed method is compared with the results of finite element analyses. The results show that the proposed method predicts the force-deformation behaviour fairly accurately, with much lesser computational effort. Further the proposed method has been used to conduct Nonlinear Dynamic Time History Analyses of two benchmark frames; close correspondence of results obtained with published results establishes the usefulness and computational accuracy of the method.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.9 no.2 s.31
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• pp.229-235
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• 1997

In order to check the influence of the randomness in yield strengths on the energy dissipation capacity of steel structures, behaviour factors applied for the "Response Spectrum Method" and their distributions are determined in this study with 7 steel framed models. Also 4 artificial accelerograms simulated with a given spectrum are applied to check the influence of the randomness in seismic action on the behviour factor. To execute numerous time-step calculations for the investigation a time-step analysis method is developed and applied after the reliability estimation to determine the action effects.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.223-236
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• 2017

Seismic assessment and rehabilitation of Monumental Buildings constitute an important issue in many regions around the world to preserve cultural heritage. On the contrary, many recent earthquakes have demonstrated the high vulnerability of this type of structures. The high nonlinear masonry behaviour requires ad hoc refined finite element numerical models, whose complexity and computational costs are generally unsuitable for practical applications. For these reasons, several authors proposed simplified numerical strategies to be used in engineering practice. However, most of these alternative methods are oversimplified being based on the assumption of in-plane behaviour of masonry walls. Moreover, they cannot be used for modelling the monumental structures for which the interaction between plane and out-plane behaviour governs the structural response. Recently, an innovative discrete-modelling approach for the simulation of both in-plane and out of-plane response of masonry structures was proposed and applied to study several typologies of historic structures. In this paper the latter model is applied with reference to a real case study, and numerically compared with an advanced finite element modelling. The method is applied to the St.Venerio church in Reggiolo (Italy), damaged during the 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake and numerically investigated in the literature.