• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.375-388
• /
• 2022

Nibellen structural system is a novel resilient bracing system based on the application of Bellville disks and Nitinol rods. The cyclic behavior of Nibellen assembly was obtained, and the design equations were developed based on the available literature. Seismic performance of the system was then studied analytically. Two groups of buildings with different lateral force resisting systems were designed and studied: one group with the Nibellen system, and the other with the special concentrically braced frame system. Each building group consisted of 5-, 10-, and 15-story buildings. The Design-Base-Event (DBE) and Maximum Considered Event (MCE) were considered as the seismic hazard, and a suite of seven ground motions were scaled accordingly for response history analyses. Finally, the resiliency of the buildings was studied by obtaining the functionality curve of the buildings before and after the seismic event. The construction cost of the 5-story building with Nibellen bracing system increased but the post-earthquake cost decreased significantly. The application of Nibellen system in the 10- and 15-story buildings reduced both the construction and repair costs, considerably. Resiliency of all the buildings was improved when Nibellen system was used as the lateral force resisting system.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.983-1000
• /
• 2016

To date the engineering community has seen facade systems as non-structural elements with high aesthetic value and a barrier between the outdoor and indoor environments. The role of facades in energy use in a building has also been recognized and the industry is also witnessing the emergence of many energy efficient facade systems. This paper will focus on using exterior skin of the double skin facade system as a dissipative movable element during earthquake excitation. The main aim of this study is to investigate the potential of the facade system to act as a damper system to reduce earthquake-induced vibration of the primary structure. Unlike traditional mass dampers, which are usually placed at the top level of structures, the movable/smart double skin facade systems are distributed throughout the entire height of building structures. The outer skin is moveable and can act as a multi tuned mass dampers (MTMDs) that move and dissipate energy during strong earthquake motions. In this paper, using a three dimensional 10-storey building structure as the example, it is shown that with optimal choice of materials for stiffness and damping of brackets connecting the two skins, a substantial portion of earthquake induced vibration energy can be dissipated which leads to avoiding expensive ductile seismic designs. It is shown that the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) for a low-rise building structures subjected to moderate to severe earthquakes can be substantially reduced by introduction of a smart designed double skin system.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.103-113
• /
• 2015

Modular construction is a process in which a building is produced off-site in module boxes using standard materials. Since the introduction of prefabrication in building construction, Modular Coordination (MC) has become an essential design tool in building design and construction. However, in Korea, the design standardization has not been adequately applied to modular construction. This study intends to analyze the current status of modular construction in Korea and explore the applicability of MC design in the construction industry. The analysis of the current status of MC design within Korean four major modular construction companies indicates that an incremental dimension is not properly used in horizontal planning modules, which results in a problem of increasing construction cost by high material loss rate. But, in vertical planning modules, a incremental dimension of 100 mm (1 M) is found to be used although the structural system varies among manufacturers, which demonstrates the potential for an open system to be well applied in modular construction, despite different structural systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.573-591
• /
• 2004

A hybrid control system is presented for seismic-resistant building structures with and without soil-structure interaction (SSI). The hybrid control is a damper-actuator-bracing control system composed of passive and active controllers. An intelligent algorithm is developed for the hybrid system, in which the passive damper is designed for minor and moderate earthquakes and the active control is designed to activate when the structural response is greater than a given threshold quantity. Thus, the external energy for active controller can be optimally utilized. In the control of a multistory building, the controller placement is determined by evaluating the optimal location index (OLI) calculated from six earthquake sources. In the study, the soil-structure interaction is considered both in frequency domain and time domain analyses. It is found that the interaction can significantly affect the control effectiveness. In the hybrid control algorithm with intelligent strategy, the working stages of passive and active controllers can be different for a building with and without considering SSI. Thus SSI is essential to be included in predicting the response history of a controlled structure.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2017

The Pertamina Energy Tower (PET) and Manhattan West North Tower (MWNT) are two supertall towers recently designed and engineered by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The structural system for both buildings consists of an interior reinforced concrete core and a perimeter moment frame system, which is primarily structural steel. As is typical for tall towers with both concrete and steel elements, staged construction analysis was performed in order to account for the long term effects of creep and shrinkage, which result in differential shortening between the interior concrete core and steel perimeter frame. The particular design of each tower represents two extremes of behavior; PET has a robust connection between the perimeter and core in the form of three sets of outriggers, while the perimeter columns of MWNT do not reach the ground, but are transferred to the core above the base. This paper will present a comparison of the techniques used during the analysis and construction stages of the design process with the goal of understanding the differences in structural behavior of these two building systems in response to the long term effects of creep and shrinkage. This paper will also discuss the design and construction techniques implemented in order to minimize the differential shortening between the interior and exterior over the lifespan of these towers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.20 no.5
• /
• pp.1133-1153
• /
• 2016

In this article, an additive performance ratio method using structural analysis of both 2D and 3D is introduced to mitigate the complexity of work evaluating structural performances of numerous steel outrigger alternatives in multi-story buildings, especially high-rise buildings. The combined structural analysis process enables to be the design of economic, safe, and as constructional demanding structures by exploiting the advantages of steel, namely: excellent energy dissipation and ductility. First the approach decides the alternative of numerous steel outriggers by a simple 2D analysis module and then the alternative is evaluated by 3D analysis module. Initial structural analyses of outrigger types are carried out through MIDAS Gen 2D modeling, approximately, and then the results appeal structural performance and lead to decide some alternative of outrigger types. ETABS 3D modeling is used with respect to realization and evaluation of exact structural behaviors. The approach reduces computational burden in compared to existing concepts such as full 3D analysis methods. The combined 2D and 3D tools are verified by cycle and displacement tests including comprehensive nonlinear dynamic simulations. The advantages and limitations of the Additive Performance Ratio Approach are highlighted in a case study on a high rise steel-composite building, which targets at designing the optimized alternative to the existing original outrigger for lateral load resisting system.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
• /
• v.15 no.2 s.55
• /
• pp.73-80
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of structural expression in the works of Louis I. Kahn. Kahn's main architectural thoughts of 'what it wants to be' and 'how it was done' are important in this research because these statements act as a clue to understand the relationship between structural expression and space. 'What it wants to be' means the essence and existence of architecture and 'how it was done' shows the tectonic of architecture and construction process to enhance its presence. Kahn's emphasis of structural expression stems from the fact that structure is the logical part of whole building system rather than the concealed object for the exterior of buildings. Therefore structure of Kahn's architecture is not a structure only to support building but a mean to express his thoughts in a corporeal way. In Kahn's works, the characteristics of structural expressions are summarized as the visualization of the order in dynamics, construction process, spatial system, and the relationship between structure and light in the space.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.4 no.5
• /
• pp.513-527
• /
• 1996

In this paper, both an approximate expression and an exact expression for the contribution factor of an element to the natural frequency of the finite element discretized system of a structure in general and a membrane in particular have been derived from the energy conservation principle and the finite element formulation of structural eigenvalue problems. The approximate expression for the contribution factor of an element is used to predict and determine the elements to be removed in an iteration since it depends only on the quantities associated with the old system in the iteration. The exact expression for the contribution factor of an element makes it possible to check whether the element is correctly removed at the end of an iteration because it depends on both the old system and the new system in the iteration. Thus, the combined use of the approximate expression and the exact expression allows a considerable number of elements to be removed in a single iteration so that the efficiency of the evolutionary structural optimization method can be greatly improved for solving the natural frequency optimization problem of a structure. A square membrane with different boundary supports has been chosen to investigate the general evolutionary path for the fundamental natural frequency of the structure. The related results indicated that if the objective of a structural optimization is to raise the fundamental natural frequency of the structure to an optimal value, the general evolutionary path during its optimization is that the elements are gradually removed along the direction from the area surrounded by the contour of the highest value to that surrounded by the contour of the lowest value.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.139-152
• /
• 2009

Globally, civil infrastructures are deteriorating at an alarming rate caused by overuse, overloading, aging, damage or failure due to natural or man-made hazards. With such a vast network of deteriorating infrastructure, there is a growing interest in continuous monitoring technologies. In order to provide a true distributed sensor and control system for civil structures, we are developing a Structural Nervous System that mimics key attributes of a human nervous system. This nervous system is made up of building blocks that are designed based on mechanoreceptors as a fundamentally new approach for the development of a structural health monitoring and diagnostic system that utilizes the recently developed piezo-fibers capable of sensing and actuation. In particular, our research has been focused on producing a sensory nervous system for civil structures by using piezo-fibers as sensory receptors, nerve fibers, neuronal pools, and spinocervical tract to the nodal and central processing units. This paper presents up to date results of our research, including the design and analysis of the structural nervous system.

• Coupled systems mechanics
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.169-184
• /
• 2019

This research work presents a study that aims to assess the dynamic structural behaviour and also investigate the human comfort levels of a reinforced concrete building, when subjected to nondeterministic wind dynamic loadings, considering the effect of masonry infills on the global stiffness of the structural model. In general, the masonry fills most of the empty areas within the structural frames of the buildings. Although these masonry infills present structural stiffness, the common practice of engineers is to adopt them as static loads, disregarding the effect of the masonry infills on the global stiffness of the structural system. This way, in this study a numerical model based on sixteen-storey reinforced concrete building with 48 m high and dimensions of $14.20m{\times}15m$ was analysed. This way, static, modal and dynamic analyses were carried out in order to simulate the structural model based on two different strategies: no masonry infills and masonry infills simulated by shell finite elements. In this investigation, the wind action is considered as a nondeterministic process with unstable properties and also random characteristics. The fluctuating parcel of the wind is decomposed into a finite number of harmonic functions proportional to the structure resonant frequency with phase angles randomly determined. The nondeterministic dynamic analysis clearly demonstrates the relevance of a more realistic numerical modelling of the masonry infills, due to the modifications on the global structural stiffness of the building. The maximum displacements and peak accelerations values were reduced when the effect of the masonry infills (structural stiffness) were considered in the dynamic analysis. Finally, it can be concluded that the human comfort evaluation of the sixteen-storey reinforced concrete building can be altered in a favourable way to design.