• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.1017-1020
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• 2008

Carburization at concrete structures is being processed independently or compositively and each unique Carburization will appear depending on the condition of circumstance. Therefore, the depletion rate was being estimated at this research for buildings and civil construction structures of different environments and of more than 10 - 60 years old by calculating the depth of carburization and the density of Alkali. As the results of the test, buildings (interior) had a deeper and a faster carburization than civil construction structures being exposed to open air as closer to the shore. And also, concrete structures being used as an underdrain of sewage were proven to have a deeper carburization than utility-pipe conduits or underground tunnels.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2006

The optimal design of multiple tuned mass dampers (multiple TMD's) to suppress multi-mode structural response of beams and floor structures was investigated. A new method using a numerical optimizer, which can effectively handle a large number of design variables, was employed to search for both optimal placement and tuning of TMD's for these structures under wide-band loading. The first design problem considered was vibration control of a simple beam using 10 TMD's. The results confirmed that for structures with widelyspaced natural frequencies, multiple TMD's can be adequately designed by treating each structural vibration mode as an equivalent SDOF system. Next, the control of a beam structure with two closely-spaced natural frequencies was investigated. The results showed that the most effective multiple TMD's have their natural frequencies distributed over a range covering the two controlled structural frequencies and have low damping ratios. Moreover, a single TMD can also be made effective in controlling two modes with closely spaced frequencies by a newly identified control mechanism, but the effectiveness can be greatly impaired when the loading position changes. Finally, a realistic problem of a large floor structure with 5 closely spaced frequencies was presented. The acceleration responses at 5 positions on the floor excited by 3 wide-band forces were simultaneously suppressed using 10 TMD's. The obtained multiple TMD's were shown to be very effective and robust.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2015

Usually the analyses of structures are carried out by assuming the base of structures to be fixed. However, the soil beneath foundation alters the earthquake loading and varies the response of structure. Hence, it is not realistic to analyze structures by considering it to be fixed. The importance of soil-structure interaction was realized from the past failures of massive structures by neglecting the effect of soil in seismic analysis. The analysis of massive structures requires soil flexibility to be considered to avoid failure and ensure safety. Present study, considers the seismic behavior of multi-storey reinforced concrete narrow and wide buildings of various heights with and without shear wall supported on raft foundation incorporating the effect of soil flexibility. Analysis of the three dimensional models of six different shear wall positions founded on four different soils has been carried out using finite element software LS DYNA. The study investigates the differences in spectral acceleration coefficient (Sa/g), base shear and storey shear obtained following the seismic provisions of Indian standard code IS: 1893 (2002) (IS) and International building code IBC: 2012 (IBC). The base shear values obtained as per IBC provisions are higher than IS values.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.87-103
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• 2014

This study investigated the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the response of base-isolated buildings. Seismic isolation can significantly reduce the induced seismic loads on a relatively stiff building by introducing flexibility at its base and avoiding resonance with the predominant frequencies of common earthquakes. To provide a better understanding of the movement behavior of multi-story structures during earthquakes, this study analyzed the dynamic behavior of multi-story structures with high damping rubber bearing (HDRB) behavior base isolation systems that were built on soft soil. Various models were developed, both with and without consideration of SSI. Both the superstructure and soil were modeled linearly, but HDRB was modeled non-linearly. The behavior of the specified models under dynamic loads was analyzed using SAP2000 computer software. Erzincan, Marmara and Duzce Earthquakes were chosen as the ground motions. Following the analysis, the displacements, base shear forces, top story accelerations, base level accelerations, periods and maximum internal forces were compared in isolated and fixed-base structures with and without SSI. The results indicate that soil-structure interaction is an important factor (in terms of earthquakes) to consider in the selection of an appropriate isolator for base-isolated structures on soft soils.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2013

In the past two decades, researchers from different countries have conducted series of experimental and theoretical studies to investigate the behaviour of structures in fire. Many new insights, data and calculation methods have been reported, which form the basis for modern interdisciplinary structural fire engineering. Some of those methods are now adopted in quantitative performance-based codes and have been migrated into practice. Mainly based on the achievements in structural fire research at China, the Chinese national code for fire safety of steel structures in buildings has been drafted and approved, and will be released in this year. The code is developed to prevent steel structures subjected to fire from collapsing, ensure safe evacuation of building occupants, and reduce the cost for repairing the damages of the structure caused by fire. This paper presents the main contents of the code, which includes the fire duration requirements of structural components, fundamental requirements on fire safety design of steel components, temperature increasing of atmosphere and structural components in fire, loading effect and capacity of various components in fire, and procedure for fire-resistant check and design of steel components. The analytical approaches employed in the code and their validation works are also presented.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.293-315
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• 2016

Seismic isolation is often used in protecting mission-critical structures including hospitals, data centers, telecommunication buildings, etc. Such structures typically house vibration-sensitive equipment which has to provide continued service but may fail in case sustained accelerations during earthquakes exceed threshold limit values. Thus, peak floor acceleration is one of the two main parameters that control the design of such structures while the other one is peak base displacement since the overall safety of the structure depends on the safety of the isolation system. And in case peak base displacement exceeds the design base displacement during an earthquake, rupture and/or buckling of isolators as well as bumping against stops around the seismic gap may occur. Therefore, obtaining accurate peak floor accelerations and peak base displacement is vital. However, although nominal design values for isolation system and superstructure parameters are calculated in order to meet target peak design base displacement and peak floor accelerations, their actual values may potentially deviate from these nominal design values. In this study, the sensitivity of the seismic performance of structures equipped with linear and nonlinear seismic isolation systems to the aforementioned potential deviations is assessed in the context of a benchmark shear building under different earthquake records with near-fault and far-fault characteristics. The results put forth the degree of sensitivity of peak top floor acceleration and peak base displacement to superstructure parameters including mass, stiffness, and damping and isolation system parameters including stiffness, damping, yield strength, yield displacement, and post-yield to pre-yield stiffness ratio.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.957-981
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• 2015

Earthquakes occur as a cluster in many regions around the world where complex fault systems exist. The repeated shaking usually induces accumulative damage to affected structures. Damage accumulation in structural systems increases their level of degradation in stiffness and also reduces their strength. Many existing analytical tools of modeling RC structures lack the salient damage features that account for stiffness and strength degradation resulting from repeated earthquake loading. Therefore, these tools are inadequate to study the response of structures in regions prone to multiple earthquakes hazard. The objective of this paper is twofold: (a) develop a tool that contains appropriate damage features for the numerical analysis of RC structures subjected to more than one earthquake; and (b) conduct a parametric study that investigates the effects of multiple earthquakes on the response of RC moment resisting frame systems. For this purpose, macroscopic constitutive models of concrete and steel materials that contain the aforementioned damage features and are capable of accurately capturing materials degrading behavior, are selected and implemented into fiber-based finite element software. Furthermore, finite element models that utilize the implemented concrete and steel stress-strain hysteresis are developed. The models are then subjected to selected sets of earthquake sequences. The results presented in this study clearly indicate that the response of degrading structural systems is appreciably influenced by strong-motion sequences in a manner that cannot be predicted from simple analysis. It also confirms that the effects of multiple earthquakes on earthquake safety can be very considerable.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.935-956
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• 2015

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of steel towers has become a hot research topic. From the literature, it is impractical and impossible to develop a "general" method that can detect all kinds of damages for all types of structures. A practical method should make use of the characteristics of the type of structures and the kind of damages. This paper reports a feasibility study on the use of measured modal parameters for the detection of damaged braces of tower structures following the Bayesian probabilistic approach. A substructure-based structural model-updating scheme, which groups different parts of the target structure systematically and is specially designed for tower structures, is developed to identify the stiffness distributions of the target structure under the undamaged and possibly damaged conditions. By comparing the identified stiffness distributions, the damage locations and the corresponding damage extents can be detected. By following the Bayesian theory, the probability model of the uncertain parameters is derived. The most probable model of the steel tower can be obtained by maximizing the probability density function (PDF) of the model parameters. Experimental case studies were employed to verify the proposed method. The contributions of this paper are not only on the proposal of the substructure-based Bayesian model updating method but also on the verification of the proposed methodology through measured data from a scale model of transmission tower under laboratory conditions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.137-155
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• 2013

Brittle fracture of structures excited by earthquakes can be prevented by adding a tuned mass damper (TMD). This TMD must be optimum and suitable to the physical conditions of the structure. Compressive strength of concrete is an important factor for brittle fracture. The application of a TMD to structures with low compressive strength of concrete may not be possible if the weight of the TMD is too much. A heavy TMD is dangerous for these structures because of insufficient axial force capacity of structure. For the preventing brittle fracture, the damping ratio of the TMD must be sufficient to reduce maximum shear forces below the values proposed in design regulations. Using the formulas for frequency and damping ratio related to a preselected mass, this objective can be only achieved by increasing the mass of the TMD. By using a metaheuristic method, the optimum parameters can be searched in a specific limit. In this study, Harmony Search (HS) is employed to find optimum TMD parameters for preventing brittle fracture by reducing shear force in additional to other time and frequency responses. The proposed method is feasible for the retrofit of weak structures with insufficient compressive strength of concrete.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.6 no.2 s.21
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• pp.9-15
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• 2006

Structures of Civil Engineering have been designed with a safety as their main purpose. However recently, the greenness side of the technology of civil engineering regarded as most Important and also utility values and stability of the structures. Also developments in the technology make materials to be higher strength and they shortened scales and stiffness of the structural members. This means that it brings an immoderate deflection and vibration of bridge structures simultaneously. Accordingly, this study ai ed to find and estimate the most idealized structure models on the effects of the deflection and vibration of bridges from the traffic lane load and human vibration - the main pass of bridge structures.