• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.455-480
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• 2015

In the last decade, displacement-based (DB) methods have become established design procedures for reinforced concrete (RC) structures. They use strain and displacement measures as seismic performance control parameters. As for other simplified seismic design methods, it is of great interest to prove if they are usually conservative in respect to more refined, nonlinear, time history analyses, and can estimate design parameters with acceptable accuracy. In this paper, the current Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) procedure is evaluated for designing simple single degree of freedom (SDOF) systems with specific reference to simply supported RC bridge piers. Using different formulations proposed in literature for the equivalent viscous damping and spectrum reduction factor, a parametric study is carried out on a comprehensive set of SDOF systems, and an average error chart of the method is derived allowing prediction of the expected error for an ample range of design cases. Following the chart, it can be observed that, for the design of actual RC bridge piers, underestimation errors of the DDBD method are very low, while the overestimation range of the simplified displacement-based procedure is strongly dependent on design ductility.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.239-255
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• 2009

In the companion paper, a simple but effective analysis procedure termed an Improved Modal Pushover Analysis (IMPA) is proposed to estimate the seismic capacities of multi-span continuous bridge structures on the basis of the modal pushover analysis, which considers all the dynamic modes of a structure. In contrast to previous studies, the IMPA maintains the simplicity of the capacity-demand curve method and gives a better estimation of the maximum dynamic response in a bridge structure. Nevertheless, to verify its applicability, additional parametric studies for multi-span continuous bridges with large differences in the length of adjacent piers are required. This paper, accordingly, concentrates on a parametric study to review the efficiency and limitation in the application of IMPA to bridge structures through a correlation study between various analytical models including the equivalent single-degree-of-freedom method (ESDOF) and modal pushover analysis (MPA) that are usually used in the seismic design of bridge structures. Based on the obtained numerical results, this paper offers practical guidance and/or limitations when using IMPA to predict the seismic response of a bridge effectively.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.57-76
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• 2015

The Performance-based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE) concept implies the definition of multiple target performance levels of damage which are expected to be achieved (or not exceeded), when the structure is subjected to earthquake ground motion of specified intensity. These levels are associates to different return period (RP) of earthquakes and structural behaviors quantified with adopted factors or indexes of control. In this work an 8-level PBEE study is carried out, finding different curves for control index or Engineering Demand Parameters (EDP) of levels that assess the structural behavior. The results and the curves for each index of control allow to deduce the structural behavior at an a priori unspecified RP. A general methodology is proposed that takes into account a possible optimization process in the PBEE field. Finally, an application to 8-level seismic performance assessment to structure in a Spanish seismic zone permits deducing that its behavior is deficient for high seismic levels (RP > 475 years). The application of the methodology to a low-to-moderate seismic zone case proves to be a good tool of structural seismic design, applying a more sophisticated although simple PBEE formulation.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.359-374
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• 2017

The seismic events in Northern Italy, May 2012, have revealed the seismic vulnerability of typical Italian precast industrial buildings. The aim of this paper is to present a seismic fragility model for Italian RC precast buildings, to be used in earthquake loss estimation and seismic risk assessment by comparing two building typologies and three different codes: D.M. 3-03-1975, D.M. 16-01-1996 and current Italian building code that has been released in 2008. Based on geometric characteristics and design procedure applied, ten different building classes were identified. A Monte Carlo simulation was performed for each building class in order to generate the building stock used for the development of fragility curves trough analytical method. The probabilistic distributions of geometry were mainly obtained from data collected from 650 field surveys, while the material properties were deduced from the code in place at the time of construction or from expert opinion. The structures were modelled in 2D frameworks; since the past seismic events have identified the beam-column connection as the weakest element of precast buildings, two different modelling solutions were adopted to develop fragility curves: a simple model with post processing required to detect connection collapse and an innovative modelling solution able to reproduce the real behaviour of the connection during the analysis. Fragility curves were derived using both nonlinear static and dynamic analysis.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권6호
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• pp.719-729
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• 2017

A considerable research is available on the seismic response of Reinforced Concrete (RC) shear wall-frame buildings, but the studies on the reliability of such buildings, with the consideration of human error, are limited. In the present study, a detailed procedure for reliability assessment of RC shear wall-frame building subjected to earthquake loading against serviceability limit state is presented. Monte Carlo simulation was used for the reliability assessment. The procedure was implemented on a 10-story RC building to demonstrate that the shear walls improve the reliability substantially. The annual and life-time failure probabilities of the studied building were estimated by employing the information of the annual probability of earthquake occurrence and the design life of the building. A simple risk-based cost assessment procedure that relates both the structural life-time failure probability and the target reliability with the total cost of the building was then presented. The structural failure probability (i.e., the probability of exceeding the allowable drift) considering human errors was also studied. It was observed that human error in the estimation of total load and/or concrete strength changes the reliability sharply.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.79-87
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• 2017

Seismic analysis of local site conditions is fundamental for a reliable site seismic hazard assessment. It plays a major role in mitigation of seismic damage potential through the prediction of surface ground motion in terms of amplitude, frequency content and duration. Such analysis requires the determination of the transfer function, which is a simple tool for characterizing a soil profile by estimating its vibration frequencies and its amplification potential. In this study, numerical simulations are carried out and are then combined with a statistical study to allow the characterization of design sites classified by the Algerian Building Seismic Code (RPA99, ver 2003), by average transfer functions. The mean transfer functions are thereafter used to compute RPA99 average site factors. In this regard, coming up seismic fields are simulated based on Power Spectral Density Functions (PSDF) defined at the rock basement. Results are also used to compute average site factor where, actual and synthetic time histories are introduced. In absence of measurement data, it is found that the proposed approach can be used for a better soil characterization.

• 한국전산구조공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산구조공학회 2004년도 가을 학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.34-40
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• 2004

In this paper, peliminary design procedure of magnetorheological (MR) dampers is developed for controlling the building response induced by seismic excitation. Hysteretic biviscous model which is simple and can describe the hysteretic characteristics of MR damper is used for parametric studies. The capacity of MR damper is determined as a portion of not the building weight but the lateral restoring force. A method is proposed for the optimal placement and number of MR dampers, and its effectiveness is verified by comparing it with the simplified search algorithm. Numerical results indicate that the capacity, number and the placement can be reasonably determined using the proposed design procedure.

• 한국전산구조공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산구조공학회 2007년도 정기 학술대회 논문집
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• pp.795-800
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• 2007

In the previous study, a simple but effective analysis procedure, named as an Improved Modal Pushover Analysis (IMPA) was proposed to estimates the seismic capacities of multi-span continuous bridge structures, on the basis of the modal pushover analysis which considers all the dynamic modes of a structure. Differently from other previous studies, IMPA maintains the simplicity of the capacity-demand curve method and also gives a better estimation of the maximum dynamic response of a structure. Nevertheless, its applicability has never been approved for multi-span continuous bridges with large differences in the length of their adjacent piers. This paper, accordingly, concentrates on a parametric study to verify the efficiency and limitation in application of IMPA through a correlation study between various analytical models including the Equivalent Single Degree Of Freedom (ESDOF) and Modal Pushover Analysis (MPA) usually used in the seismic design of structures. Based on the obtained numerical results, this paper introduces a practical guidance and/or limitation for using IMPA to predict the seismic response of a bridge effectively.

• 한국지진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국지진공학회 2006년도 학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.637-644
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• 2006

Acceleration time history used in the seismic analysis of nuclear porter plant structure should envelop a target power spectral density (PSD) function in addition to design response spectrum. Current regulation guide defines the target PSD function only for the U.S. URC RG 1.60 Design Response Spectrum. This paper proposes a technical scheme to obtain the target PSD function compatible with generally defined design response spectrum. The scheme includes the methodology for design-spectrum compatible motion history in order to minimize the variation of the derived target PSD function. The PSD calculation procedure follows simple and practical methods allowed within regulation. Effectiveness of the proposed scheme is identified through an example problem. The design response spectrum In the example is based on U.S. NRC RG 1.60 but amplifies the spectral acceleration amplitudes above 9Hz. The target PSD function with little variation can be constructed with the reduced time history ensemble.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제77권4호
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• pp.463-472
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• 2021

Fully rigid floor diaphragm is one of the main assumptions that are widely used in common practices due to its simple application. However, determining the exact degree of diaphragms flexibility cannot be easily accomplished without finite element modeling, which is an expensive and time-consuming procedure. Therefore, it is always possible that apparently rigid diaphragms, based on prescriptive limitations of seismic codes, experience some degrees of flexibility during the earthquakes. Since diaphragm flexibility has more uncertainties in asymmetric-plan structures, this study focuses on errors resulting from probable floor diaphragm flexibility of torsionally restrained structures. The analytical models used in this study were single-story buildings with asymmetric plan and RC shear walls. Although floor system is not considered explicitly, a wide range of considered diaphragm flexibility, from fully rigid to quite flexible, allows the results to be generalizable to a lot of lateral load resisting systems as well as floor systems. It has been shown that in addition to previously known effects of diaphragm flexibility, presence of orthogonal side elements during design procedure with rigid diaphragm assumption and rapid reduction in their absorbed forces can also be an important source to increase errors due to flexibility. Accordingly, from the obtained results the authors suggest designers to consider the possibility of diaphragm flexibility and its adverse effects, especially in torsionally restrained systems in their common designs.