• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1315-1330
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• 2016

This study investigates ground motion parameters and their damage potential for building type structures. It focuses on low and mid-rise reinforced concrete buildings that are important portion of the existing building stock under seismic risk in many countries. Correlations of 19 parameters of 466 earthquake records with nonlinear displacement demands of 1056 Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) systems are investigated. Properties of SDOF systems are established to represent RC building construction practice. The correlation of damage and ground motion characteristics is examined with respect to number of story and site classes. Equations for average nonlinear displacement demands of considered RC buildings are given for some of the ground motion parameters. Velocity related parameters are generally found to have better results than the acceleration, displacement and frequency related ones. Correlation of the parameters may be expected to decrease with increasing intensity of seismic event. Velocity Spectrum Intensity and Peak Ground Velocity have been found to have the highest correlation values for almost all site classes and number of story groups. Common parameter of Peak Ground Acceleration has lower correlation with damage when compared to them and some other parameters like Effective Design Acceleration and Characteristic Intensity.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.401-420
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• 2007

Field measurements of the wind-induced response of two residential reinforced concrete buildings, among the tallest in the world, have been performed during two typhoons. Natural periods and damping values have been determined and compared with other field measurements and empirical predictors. Suitable and common empirical predictors of natural period and structural damping have been obtained that describe the trend of tall, reinforced concrete buildings whose structural vibrations have been measured in the collection of studies in Hong Kong compiled by the authors. This data is especially important as the amount of information known about the dynamic parameters of buildings of these heights is limited. Effects of the variation of the natural period and damping values on the alongwind response of a tall building for serviceability-level wind conditions have been profiled using the gust response factor approach. When using this approach on these two buildings, the often overestimated natural periods and structural damping values suggested by empirical predictors tended to offset each other. Gust response factors calculated using the natural periods and structural damping values measured in the field were smaller than if calculated using design-stage values.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.4580-4586
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• 2013

Many school buildings are not applied seismic code because of small size structures. But it must be designed to show enough structural performance when subject to earthquake due to the fact that most of school buildings are generally used as public shelters when the natural disasters. In this study, the seismic risk of the reinforced concrete school building structure which is the most common types of school structures was evaluated by using the seismic performance evaluation methods. As a result, model structures don't have enough seismic performance.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.345-353
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• 2022

The configuration of an open ground floor (pilotis) is a common and very critical irregularity observed in multistory reinforced concrete frame structures. The characteristics and the geometrical formation of the beams of the first story proved to be a critical parameter for the overall seismic behavior of this type of Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures. In this work the combination of open ground floor (pilotis) morphology with very strong perimetrical beams at the level of the first story is studied. The observation of the seismic damages and the in situ measurements of the fundamental period of four buildings with this morphology and Π-shaped plan view are presented herein. Further analytical results of a pilotis type Π-shaped RC structure are also included in the study. From the measurements and the analytical results yield that the open ground floor configuration greatly influences the fundamental period whereas this morphology in combination with strong beams can lead to severe local shear damages in the columns of the ground floor. The structural damage was limited in the columns of the ground floor and yet based on the changes of the in situ measured fundamental period the damaged level is assessed as DI=88%. Furthermore, due to the Π-shape of the plan view the tendency of the parts of the building to move independently strongly influences the distribution of the damages over the ground floor vertical elements.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.683-691
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• 2013

Failure behaviour of deep beams is largely depend on shear span to effective depth ratio(a/d). For deep beams with $a/d{\leq}1.0$, the diagonal splitting of the web and local crushing of concrete near applied loads or supports is the most common failure mode. If the beam contains sufficient web reinforcement, area of local crushing will be increased while area of diagonal splitting is decreased. When web reinforcement above purpose, web should be reinforced both in the horizontal and vertical directions or be reinforced in perpendicular direction to diagonal cracks. For deep beams with 1.0${\leq}2.5$, the increment of shear strength by the horizontal web reinforcement are hardly expected unless amount of main bars very small that the main bars should be reached yielding state when shear failure occurs. In contrast, the vertical web reinforcement prevent the beam from being transferred to tied arch mechanism, and as a result th shear strength of beam increase. In this study, formulas based on upper bound theorem of plastic theory are proposed to predict the shear strength of reinforced concrete deep beams with $a/d{\leq}1.0$. Comparisons with other experiment results are performed, and good agreement between measured and predicted value by proposed formulas is obtained.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.879-902
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• 2015

The remaining service life (RSL) of buildings has been an important issue in the field of building and facility management, and its development is also one of the essential factors for achieving sustainable infrastructure. Since the estimation of RSL of buildings is heavily affected by the subjectivity of individual inspector or engineer, much effort has been placed in the development of a rational method that can estimate the RSL of existing buildings more quantitatively using objective measurement indices. Various uncertain factors contribute to the deterioration of the structural performance of buildings, and most of the common building structures are constructed not with a single structural member but with various types of structural components (e.g., beams, slabs, and columns) in multistory floors. Most existing RSL estimation methods, however, consider only an individual factor. In this study, an estimation method for RSL of concrete buildings is presented by utilizing a fuzzy theory to consider the effects of multiple influencing factors on the deterioration of durability (e.g., concrete carbonation, chloride attack, sulfate attack), as well as the current structural condition (or damage level) of buildings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.381-394
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• 2003

While constructing multistorey buildings with reinforced concrete framed structures it is a common practice to provide parking space for vehicles at the ground floor level. This floor will generally consist of open frames without any infilled walls and is called an open-storey. From a post disaster damage survey carried out, it was noticed that during the January 26, 2001 Bhuj (Gujarat, India) earthquake, a large number of reinforced concrete framed buildings with open-storey at ground floor level, suffered extensive damage and in some cases catastrophic collapse. This has brought into sharp focus the need to carry out systematic studies on the seismic vulnerability of such buildings. Determination of vulnerability requires realistic structural response estimations taking into account the stochasticity in the loading and the system parameters. The stochastic finite element method can be effectively used to model the random fields while carrying out such studies. This paper presents the details of stochastic finite element analysis of a five-storey three-bay reinforced concrete framed structure with open-storey subjected to standard seismic excitation. In the present study, only the stochasticity in the system parameters is considered. The stochastic finite element method used for carrying out the analysis is based on perturbation technique. Each random field representing the stochastic geometry/material property is discretised into correlated random variables using spatial averaging technique. The uncertainties in geometry and material properties are modelled using the first two moments of the corresponding parameters. In evaluating the stochastic response, the cross-sectional area and Young' modulus are considered as independent random fields. To study the influence of correlation length of random fields, different correlation lengths are considered for random field discretisation. The spatial expectations and covariances for displacement response at any time instant are obtained as the output. The effect of open-storey is modelled by suitably considering the stiffness of infilled walls in the upper storey using cross bracing. In order to account for changes in soil conditions during strong motion earthquakes, both fixed and hinged supports are considered. The results of the stochastic finite element based seismic analysis of reinforced concrete framed structures reported in this paper demonstrate the importance of considering the effect of open-storey with appropriate support conditions to estimate the realistic response of buildings subjected to earthquakes.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.221-234
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• 2010

In light-frame wood construction, missing roof-sheathing fasteners can be a relatively common occurrence. This type of construction makes up the vast majority of the residential building stock in North America and thus their performance in high winds, including hurricanes, is of concern due to their sheer number. Construction quality issues are common in these types of structures primarily because the majority are conventionally constructed and unlike steel and reinforced concrete structures, inspection is minimal except in certain areas of the country. The concept of performance-based wind engineering (PBWE), a relatively new paradigm, relies on the assumption that building performance under wind loads can be accurately modeled. However, the discrepancy between what is designed (and modeled) and what is built (the as-built) may make application of PBWE to light-frame wood buildings quite difficult. It can be concluded from this study that construction quality must be controlled for realistic application of PBWE to light-frame wood buildings.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.83-92
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• 2020

The use of spliced reinforcing bars in sustainable concrete members to manage inadequate bars length is a common practical issue which is may be due to some limitations. The lap splicing means two bars overlapped in parallel with specified length called the splice length in order to provide the required bond between the two bars. The bond between sustainable concrete and spliced steel bars is another important issue. The normal strength sustainable concrete specimens of sizes 1700×150×150 mm with tension reinforcement lap spliced were selected according to testing device length limitations. These members were designed to fail in flexure in order to investigate the lap spliced tension bars effect. The selected lap spliced tension bars were of 10 mm size with smooth and deformed surfaces in order to investigate the surface nature accompanied with the splice nature. The sustainable concrete mechanical properties and mix workability were also studied. This study reveals that the effect of number of spliced bars on the response of beams reinforced with smooth bars is found to be more obvious than deformed one. Finite element modeling in three dimensions was carried out for the tested beams using ABAQUS software. A parametric study is carried out using finite elements on considering the following parameters, concrete compressive strength, load type and opening in cross section (hollow section) for weight reduction purposes.The laboratory and numerical results show good agreements in terms of ultimate load and deflection with an average difference of 10% and 15% in ultimate load and deflection respectively.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.297-319
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• 2013

Two destructive earthquakes occurred on October 23 and November 9, 2011 in Van province of Turkey. The damage in residential units shows significant deviation from the expectation of decreasing damage with increasing distance to epicenter. The most damaged settlement Ercis has the same distance to the epicenter with Muradiye, where no damage occurred while relatively less damage observed in Van having half distance. These three cities seem to have resembling soil conditions. If the damages are evaluated: joint failures and insufficient lap splice lengths are observed to be the main causes of the total collapses in RC buildings. Additionally, low concrete strength, reinforcement detailing mistakes, soft story, heavy overhang, pounding and short columns are among other damage reasons. Examples of damages due to non-structural elements are also given. Remarkable points about seismic damages are: collapsed buildings with shear-walls, heavily damaged buildings despite adequate concrete strength due to detailing mistakes, undamaged two-story adobe buildings close to totally collapsed RC ones and undamaged structural system in buildings with heavily damaged non-structural elements. On the contrary of the common belief that buildings with shear-walls are immune to total collapse among civil engineers, collapse of Gedikbulak primary school is a noteworthy example.