• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.377-394
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• 1998

Slit shear walls an reinforced concrete shear wall structures with purposely built-in vertical slits. If the slits are inserted with visco-elastic damping materials, the shear walls will become viscoelastic sandwich beams. When adequately designed, this kind of structures can be quite effective in resisting earthquake loads. Herein, a simple analysis method is developed for the evaluation of the stochastic responses of visco-elastic slit shear walls. In the proposed method, the stiffness and mass matrices are derived by using Rayleigh-Ritz method, and the responses of the structures are calculated by means of complex modal analysis. Apart from slit shear walls, this analysis method is also applicable to coupled shear walls and cantilevered sandwich beams. Numerical examples are presented and the results clearly show that the seismic responses of shear wall structures can be substantially reduced by incorporating vertical slits into the walls and inserting visco-elastic damping materials into the slits.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.625-637
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• 2015

It is usual in design and assessment of structures to isolate the effects of vertical and horizontal excitations by ignoring their coupling effects. In this situation, total structural response is obtained by employing the well-known combination rules whereby independent assumed response components of earthquakes are combined. In fact, the effects of the simultaneity of the ground motion components are ignored. In this paper, the effect of vertical excitation on horizontal response of structures, the coupling of vertical and horizontal responses, has been evaluated. A computer program is prepared to perform nonlinear dynamic analysis based on the derived governing equations of coupled motions. In the case of simultaneous excitation the results show significant increases in spectral displacement in some periods of vibration in comparison to only horizontally excited systems. Moreover, whenever ratio of the vertical peak ground acceleration to horizontal one become larger, the significant increase in horizontal spectral displacements are observed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.541-553
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• 2015

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems can provide valuable information regarding the safety of structures during and after ground motions which can be used by authorities to reduce post-earthquake hazards. Strain gages as a key element play an important role in the success of SHM systems. Reducing the number of required strain gages while keeping the efficiency of SHM system not only can reduce the cost of structural health monitoring but also avoids storage and process of uninformative data. In this study, a method based on performance based seismic design of structures is proposed for ideal placement of stain gages in structures. The robustness and efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated through installation of strain gages on an Airport Traffic Control (ATC) Tower. The obtained results show that the number of required strain gages decrease significantly.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.263-278
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• 2018

Thermal Exchange Optimization (TEO) is a newly developed algorithm which mimics the thermal exchange between a solid object and its surrounding fluid. In this paper, an improved version of the TEO is developed to fix the shortcomings of the standard version. To demonstrate the viability of the new algorithm, the CEC 2016's single objective problems are considered along with the discrete size optimization of benchmark skeletal structures. Problem specific constraints are handled using a fly-back mechanism. The results show the validity of the improved TEO method compared to its standard version and a number of well-known algorithms.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.359-378
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• 2013

The problem of identification of multi-component and (or) spatially varying earthquake support motions based on measured responses in instrumented structures is considered. The governing equations of motion are cast in the state space form and a time domain solution to the input identification problem is developed based on the Kalman and particle filtering methods. The method allows for noise in measured responses, imperfections in mathematical model for the structure, and possible nonlinear behavior of the structure. The unknown support motions are treated as hypothetical additional system states and a prior model for these motions are taken to be given in terms of white noise processes. For linear systems, the solution is developed within the Kalman filtering framework while, for nonlinear systems, the Monte Carlo simulation based particle filtering tools are employed. In the latter case, the question of controlling sampling variance based on the idea of Rao-Blackwellization is also explored. Illustrative examples include identification of multi-component and spatially varying support motions in linear/nonlinear structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.371-392
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• 2000

Application of "advanced analysis" methods suitable for non-linear analysis and design of steel frame structures permits direct and accurate determination of ultimate system strengths, without resort to simplified elastic methods of analysis and semi-empirical specification equations. However, the application of advanced analysis methods has previously been restricted to steel frames comprising only compact sections that are not influenced by the effects of local buckling. A concentrated plasticity method suitable for practical advanced analysis of steel frame structures comprising non-compact sections is presented in this paper. The pseudo plastic zone method implicitly accounts for the effects of gradual cross-sectional yielding, longitudinal spread of plasticity, initial geometric imperfections, residual stresses, and local buckling. The accuracy and precision of the method for the analysis of steel frames comprising non-compact sections is established by comparison with a comprehensive range of analytical benchmark frame solutions. The pseudo plastic zone method is shown to be more accurate and precise than the conventional individual member design methods based on elastic analysis and specification equations.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.77-100
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• 2015

Multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMDs) tuned to various frequencies have been shown to efficiently control the seismic response of structures where multiple modes are dominant. One example is irregular structures that are found more vulnerable than their symmetric counterparts. With the technology of MTMDs available, design and optimal design methodologies are required for application. Such a methodology, in the form of an analysis/redesign (A/R) scheme, has been previously presented by the authors while limiting responses of interest to allowable values, i.e., performance-based design (PBD). In this paper, the A/R procedure is modified based on formal optimality criteria, making it more cost efficient, as well as more computationally efficient. It is shown that by using the methodology presented herein, a desired performance level is successfully targeted by adding near-optimal amounts of mass at various locations and tuning the TMDs to dampen several of the structure's frequencies. This is done using analysis tools only.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.13-19
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• 2019

Dynamic earth pressure is considered an important parameter in the design of embedded structures. In current engineering design simplified methods developed either for yielding or non-yielding structures are utilized to predict resultant dynamic pressure. The applicability of these equations to embedded structures have not yet been reported. In this study we perform a suite of equivalent linear time history analysis for a range of embedded structure configurations. Numerically calculated dynamic pressure is shown to depend on the flexibility ratio (F), aspect ratio (L/H) of the embedded structure, and ground motion. Increase in L/H and intensity increases the magnitude of dynamic pressure. An increase in F decreases the dynamic pressure. Overall, the trends highlight the need for development of new method that accounts for F and L/H to calculate the dynamic pressure for the performance-based design of embedded structures.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.455-468
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• 2019

The behavior of pile-deck connections of pile-supported marginal wharfs subjected to earthquake loading is of key importance to ensure a good performance of this type of structures. Two precast-pretensioned pile-deck connections used in the construction of pile-supported marginal wharfs were tested under cyclic loading. The first is a connection with simple reinforcement details and light steel ratio developed for use where moderate pile-deck rotation demands are expected in the wharf. The second is specifically developed to sustain the large rotation, shear force and bending moment demands, as required for the shortest piles in a marginal wharf. Data obtained from the test program is used in the paper to calibrate an equivalent plastic hinge length that can be incorporated into nonlinear analysis models of these structures when prestressed pile-deck connections with duct embedded dowels are used.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.69-82
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• 2019

As the residual displacement and/or drift demands are commonly used for seismic assessment of buildings, the estimation of these values play a very critical role through earthquake design philosophy. The residual displacement estimation of fixed base structures has been the topic of numerous researches up to now, but the effect of soil flexibility is almost always omitted. In this study, residual displacement demands are investigated for SDOF systems with period range of 0.1-3.0 s for near-field and far-field ground motions for both fixed and interacting cases. The elastoplastic model is used to represent non-degrading structures. Based on time history analyses, a new simple yet effective equation is proposed for residual displacement demand of any system whether fixed base or interacting as a function of structural period, lateral strength ratio and spectral displacement.