• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.144-153
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• 1998

Base isolation is an innovative design strategy that provides a practical alternative for the seismic design of structures. Base isolators, mainly employed to isolate large structures subjected to earthquake ground excitations and to rehabilitate structures damaged by past earthquakes, deflect and absorb the seismic energy horizontally transmitted to the structures. This study demonstrates that the base isolation system may offer effective performance for bridges during severe seismic events through shaking table tests. Two base isolation system using laminated rubber bearings with and without hydraulic dampers are tested. The test results strongly show that the laminated rubber bearings cause the natural period of the bridge structure increased considerably, which results in the deck acceleration and the shear forces on the piers reduced significantly. The results also demonstrate that the hydraulic dampers enhance the system's capacity in dissipating energy to reduce the relative displacement between the bridge deck and the pier.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.463-479
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• 2010

Based on damage accumulation of multi-grid composite walls, a method of dynamic reliability estimations is proposed. The multi-grid composite wall is composed of edge frame beam, edge frame columns, grid beams, grid columns and filling blocks. The equations including stiffness, shear forces at filling blocks cracking and multi-grid composite walls yielding, ultimate displacement, and damage index are obtained through tests of 13 multi-grid composite wall specimens. Employing these equations in reliability calculations, procedures of dynamic reliability estimations based on damage accumulation of multi-grid composite walls subjected to random earthquake excitations are proposed. Finally the proposed method is applied to the typical composite wall specimen subjected to random earthquake excitations which can be specified by a finite number of input random variables. The dynamic reliability estimates, when filling blocks crack under earthquakes corresponding to 63% exceedance in 50 years and when the composite wall reach limit state under earthquakes corresponding to 2-3% exceedance in 50 years, are obtained using the proposed method by taking damage indexes as thresholds. The results from the proposed method which show good agreement with those from Monte-Carlo simulations demonstrate the proposed method is effective.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.295-317
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• 2020

Investigation of the stability of arch dam abutments is one of the most important aspects in the analysis of this type of dams. To this end, the Bakhtiari dam, a doubly curved arch dam having six wedges at each of its abutments, is selected. The seismic safety of dam abutments is studied through time history analysis using the design-based earthquake (DBE) and maximum credible earthquake (MCE) hazard levels. Londe limit equilibrium method is used to calculate the stability of wedges in abutments. The thrust forces are obtained using ABAQUS, and stability of wedges is calculated using the code written within MATLAB. Effects of foundation flexibility, grout curtain performance, vertical component of earthquake, nonlinear behavior of materials, and geometrical nonlinearity on the safety factor of the abutments are scrutinized. The results show that the grout curtain performance is the main affecting factor on the stability of the abutments, while nonlinear behavior of the materials is the least affecting factor amongst others. Also, it is resulted that increasing number of the contraction joints can improve the seismic stability of dam. A cap is observed on the number of joints, above which the safety factor does not change incredibly.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.503-515
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• 2022

Global or partial damage to a structure due to the failure of gravity or lateral load-bearing elements is called progressive collapse. In the present study, the alternate load path (ALP) method introduced by GSA and UFC 4-023-03 guidelines is used to evaluate the progressive collapse in special steel moment-resisting frame (SMRF) buildings. It was assumed that the progressive collapse is due to the earthquake force and its effects after the removal of the elements still remain on the structures. Therefore, nonlinear dynamic time history analysis employing 7 earthquake records is used to investigate this phenomenon. Internal and external column removal scenarios are investigated and the stiffness of the connections is changed from semi-rigid to rigid. The results of the analysis performed in the OpenSees program show that the loss of the bearing capacity of an exterior column due to a seismic event and the occurrence of progressive collapse can increase the inter-story drift of the structure with semi-rigid connections by more than 50% and make the structure unable to satisfy the life safety performance level. Furthermore, connection stiffness severely affects the redistribution of forces and moments in the adjacent elements of the removed column.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.217-235
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• 2023

Orthogonal pairs of rollers on concave beds (OPRCB) are a low-cost, low-tech rolling-based isolating system, whose high efficiency has been shown in a previous study. However, seismic performance of OPRCB isolators has only been studied in the two-dimensional (2D) state so far. This is while their performance in the three-dimensional (3D) state differs from that of the 2D state, mainly since the vertical accelerations due to rollers' motion in their beds, simultaneously in two orthogonal horizontal directions, are added up and resulting in bigger vertical inertia forces and higher rolling resistance. In this study, first, Lagrange equations were used to derive the governing equations of motion of the OPRCB-isolated buildings in 3D. Then, some regular shear-type OPRCB-isolated buildings were considered subjected to three-component excitations of far- and near-source earthquakes, and their responses were compared to those of their fixed-base counterparts. Finally, the effects of more realistic modeling and analysis were examined by comparing the responses of isolated buildings in 2D and 3D states. Response histories were obtained by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta-Nystrom method, considering the geometrical nonlinearity of isolators. Results reveal that utilizing the OPRCB isolators effectively reduces the acceleration response, however, depending on the system specifications and earthquake characteristics, the maximum responses of isolated buildings in the 3D state can be up to 40% higher than those in the 2D state.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1133-1145
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• 2015

A new neural network (NN) predictive controller (NNPC) algorithm has been developed and tested in the computer simulation of active control of a nonlinear structure. In the present method an NN is used as a predictor. This NN has been trained to predict the future response of the structure to determine the control forces. These control forces are calculated by minimizing the difference between the predicted and desired responses via a numerical minimization algorithm. Since the NNPC is very time consuming and not suitable for real-time control, it is then used to train an NN controller. To consider the effectiveness of the controller on probability of damage, fragility curves are generated. The approach is validated by using simulated response of a 3 story nonlinear benchmark building excited by several historical earthquake records. The simulation results are then compared with a linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) active controller. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm is completely effective in relative displacement reduction.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.46-54
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• 1992

In this paper, behavior of rectangular storage structures under earthquake loadings are investigated. Linear sloshing is assumed in this study. The effect of the wall flexibility is considered. Eulerian and lagrangian approaches are presented. The Eulerian approach is carried out by solving the boundary value problem for the fluid motion. In the lagrangian approach, the fluid as well as the storage structure is modelled by the finite element method. The fluid region is discretized by using fluid elements. The (1 $\times$ 1)-reduced integration is carried out for constructing the stiffness matrices of the fluid elements. Seismic analysis of the coupled system is carried out by the response spectra method. The numerical results show that the fluid forces on the wall obtained by two approaches are in good agreements. By including the effect of the wall flexibility, the forces due to fluid motion can be increased very significantly.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.257-268
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• 2000

The seismic design recommendations of the Jordan Code for Loads and Forces (JC) are evaluated, based on comparisons with analytical studies and the Uniform Building Code. It was established that the overall safety ensured by the implementation of these recommendations is not consistent with the established seismic risk in Jordan and the intended objectives of the code. A new zoning map is proposed with effective peak ground acceleration values. The different period formulae of the code were studied and were found to grossly underestimate the fundamental period when compared with analytically derived values or other codes' formulae. Other factors including the dynamic, soil, importance and behavior factors are discussed. It was determined that the JC's lateral load distribution formulae clearly lead to smaller internal forces than both dynamic analysis and UBC loads, even when those loads are normalized to give the same base shear. The main reason for this is attributed to the limited allowance for a backlash force in the JC.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2011

This paper documents an experimental study of dynamic response of reinforced concrete beams following instantaneous removal of a bearing column. Four half-scale specimens representing two-span beam bridging across the removed column were tested. The test boundary conditions simulated rotational and longitudinal restraints imposed on a frame beam by the neighboring structural components. The gravity loads were simulated by attaching mass blocks on the beams at three locations. Dynamic loading effects due to sudden removal of a column were simulated by quickly releasing the supporting force at the middle of the specimens. The experimental study investigated the load-carrying capacity of beams restrained longitudinally at the boundaries and dynamic impact on forces. The tests confirmed the extra flexural strength provided by compressive arch action under dynamic loading. The tests also indicated that the dynamic amplification effects on forces were much lower than that assumed in the current design guideline for progressive collapse.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.73-80
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• 2015

The new rotary friction damper was developed using several two-nodal rotary frictional components with different clamping forces. Because of these components, the rotary friction damper can be activated by building movements due to lateral forces such as a wind and earthquake. In this paper, various dependency tests such as displacement amplitude, forcing frequency and long term cyclic loading were carried out to evaluate on the structural performance and the multi-slip mechanism of the new damper. Test results show that the multi-slip mechanism is verified and friction coefficients are dependent on displacement amplitute and forcing frequency except long term cyclic loading.