• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.527-532
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• 2002

Near field ground motions contain distinct and large amplitude pulses in both velocity and displacement. This paper investigates characteristics of near field earthquakes and their effects on seismic demands. 20 EQGMs were selected for this purpose that satisfied 5 conditions for Near field motion. Among them ten EQGMs have one distinct peak velocity pulse in the velocity time history. In this study the responsed are Linear Elastic Response Spectrum(LERS), Response Modification Factor(R) and Inelastic Response Spectrum(IRS). The effect of the selection of Near field EQGMs on these response parameters are investigated.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.145-171
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• 2015

Due to earthquakes, many structures suffered extensive damages that were attributed to the torsional effect caused by mass, stiffness or strength eccentricity. Due to this type of asymmetry torsional moments are generated that are imposed by means of additional shear forces developed at the vertical resisting structural elements of the buildings. Although the torsional effect on the response of reinforced concrete buildings was the subject of extensive research over the last decades, a quantitative index measuring the amplification of the shear forces developed at the vertical resisting elements due to lateral-torsional coupling valid for both elastic and elastoplastic response states is still missing. In this study a reliable index capable of assessing the torsional effect is proposed. The performance of the proposed index is evaluated and its correlation with structural response quantities like displacements, interstorey drift, base torque, shear forces and upper diaphragm's rotation is presented. Torsionally stiff, mass eccentric single-story and multistory structures, subjected to bidirectional excitation, are considered and nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed using natural records selected for three hazard levels. It was found that the proposed index provides reliable prediction of the magnitude of torsional effect for all test examples considered.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.279-295
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• 2011

This paper develops a probabilistic methodology for the seismic reliability analysis of structures with random properties. The earthquake loading is assumed to be described in terms of response spectra. The proposed methodology takes advantage of the response spectra and thus does not require explicit dynamic analysis of the actual structure. Uncertainties in the structural properties (e.g. member cross-sections, modulus of elasticity, member strengths, mass and damping) as well as in the seismic load (due to uncertainty associated with the earthquake load specification) are considered. The structural reliability is estimated by determining the failure probability or the reliability index associated with a performance function that defines safe and unsafe domains. The structural failure is estimated using a performance function that evaluates whether the maximum displacement has been exceeded. Numerical illustrations of reliability analysis of elastic and elastic-plastic single-story frame structures are presented first. The extension of the proposed method to elastic multi-degree-of-freedom uncertain structures is also studied and a solved example is provided.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.327-336
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• 2018

In this study, an efficient damage index is proposed to identify multiple damage cases in structural systems using the concepts of frequency response function (FRF) matrix and strain energy of a structure. The index is defined based on the change of strain energy of an element due to damage. For obtaining the strain energy stored in elements, the columnar coefficients of the FRF matrix is used. The new indicator is named here as frequency response function strain energy based index (FRFSEBI). In order to assess the performance of the proposed index for structural damage detection, some benchmark structures having a number of damage scenarios are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed index even with considering noise can accurately identify the actual location and approximate severity of the damage. In order to demonstrate the high efficiency of the proposed damage index, its performance is also compared with that of the flexibility strain energy based index (FSEBI) provided in the literature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.613-632
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• 1998

A coupling system for a structure accelerating through a fluid is considered which is composed of the structure and the fluid in a finite surrounding volume. Based on the variational principle, the finite element equations of hydrodynamic pressure and structural elastic vibration are deduced. A numerical method is given for the dynamic character and response of the structure which takes the coupled fluid into account. The effect of axial inertial forces on the dynamic character and response of rapidly accelerating structures is also considered.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.449-470
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• 2011

During the last thirty years many structural control concepts have been proposed for the reduction of the structural response caused by earthquake excitations. Their research and implementation in practice have shown that seismic control of structures has a lot of potential but also many limitations. In this paper the importance of two practical issues, time delay and saturation effect, on the performance of controlled structures, is discussed. Their influence, both separately and in interaction, on the response of structures controlled by a modified pole placement algorithm is investigated. Characteristic buildings controlled by this algorithm and subjected to dynamic loads, such as harmonic signals and actual seismic events, are analyzed for a range of levels of time delay and saturation capacity of the control devices. The response reduction surfaces for the combined influence of time delay and force saturation of the controlled buildings are obtained. Conclusions regarding the choice of the control system and the desired properties of the control devices are drawn.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.249-260
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• 2015

Damage detection based on a reference set of measured data usually has the problem of different environmental temperature in the two sets of measurements, and the effect of temperature difference is usually ignored in the subsequent model updating. This paper attempts to identify the structural damage including the temperature difference with artificial measurement noise. Both local damages and the temperature difference are identified in a gradient-based model updating method based on dynamic response sensitivity. The sensitivities of dynamic response with respect to the system parameters and temperature difference are calculated by direct integration method. The measured dynamic responses of the structure from two different states are used directly to identify the structural local damages and the temperature difference. A single degree-of-freedom mass-spring system and a planar truss structure are studied to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.273-287
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• 1995

Stochastic response of systems to random excitation can be estimated by direct integration methods in the time domain such as the stochastic central difference method (SCDM). In this paper, the SCDM is applied to compute the variance and covariance in response of linear and nonlinear structures subjected to random excitation. The accuracy of the SCDM is assessed using two-DOF systems with both deterministic and random material properties excited by white noise. For the former case, closed-form solutions can be obtained. Numerical results also are presented for a simply supported geometrically nonlinear beam. The stiffness of this beam is modeled as a random field, and the beam is idealized by the stochastic finite element method. A perturbation technique is applied to formulate the equations of motion of the system, and the dynamic structural response statistics are obtained in a time domain analysis. The effect of variations in structural parameters and the numerical stability of the SCDM also are examined.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.447-470
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• 2014

Numerical simulation of the non-linear behavior of (RC) structural walls subjected to severe earthquake ground motions requires a reliable modeling approach that includes important material characteristics and behavioral response features. The objective of this paper is to optimize a simplified method for the assessment of the seismic response and damage development analyses of an RC structural wall building using macro-element model. The first stage of this study investigates effectiveness and ability of the macro-element model in predicting the flexural nonlinear response of the specimen based on previous experimental test results conducted in UCLA. The sensitivity of the predicted wall responses to changes in model parameters is also assessed. The macro-element model is next used to examine the dynamic behavior of the structural wall building-all the way from elastic behavior to global instability, by applying an approximate Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA), based on Uncoupled Modal Response History Analysis (UMRHA), setting up nonlinear single degree of freedom systems. Finally, the identification of the global stiffness decrease as a function of a damage variable is carried out by means of this simplified methodology. Responses are compared at various locations on the structural wall by conducting static and dynamic pushover analyses for accurate estimation of seismic performance of the structure using macro-element model. Results obtained with the numerical model for rectangular wall cross sections compare favorably with experimental responses for flexural capacity, stiffness, and deformability. Overall, the model is qualified for safety assessment and design of earthquake resistant structures with structural walls.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.451-456
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• 2011

To ensure structural integrity of membrane type LNG tank, the rational assessment of the sloshing impact responses of tank structures should be preceded. The sloshing impact pressures acting on the insulation system of LNG tank are typical irregular loads and the resulting structural responses show very complex behaviors accompanied with fluid structure interaction. So it is not easy to estimate them accurately and immense time consuming calculation process would be necessary. In this research, a simplified method to analyse the dynamic structural responses of LNG tank insulation system under pressure time histories obtained by sloshing model test or numerical analysis was studied. The proposed technique based on the concept of linear combination of the triangular response functions which are the transient responses of structures under the unit triangular impact pressure acting on structures. The validity of suggested method was verified through the example calculations and applied to the dynamic structural response analysis of a real Mark III membrane type insulation system using the sloshing impact pressure time histories obtained by model test.