• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.625-642
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• 2016

The rapid technology developments in smartphones have created a significant opportunity for their use in structural live load measurements. This paper presents extensive experiments conducted in two stages to investigate this opportunity. Shaking table tests were carried out in the first stage using selected popular smartphones to measure the sinusoidal waves of various frequencies, the sinusoidal sweeping, and earthquake waves. Comparison between smartphone measurements and real inputs showed that the smartphones used in this study gave reliable measurements for harmonic waves in both time and frequency domains. For complex waves, smartphone measurements should be used with caution. In the second stage, three-dimensional motion capture technology was employed to explore the capacity of smartphones for measuring the movement of individuals in walking, bouncing and jumping activities. In these tests, reflective markers were attached to the test subject. The markers' trajectories were recorded by the motion capture system and were taken as references. The smartphone measurements agreed well with the references when the phone was properly fixed. Encouraged by these experimental validation results, smartphones were attached to moving participants of this study. The phones measured the acceleration near the center-of-mass of his or her body. The human-induced loads were then reconstructed by the acceleration measurements in conjunction with a biomechanical model. Satisfactory agreement between the reconstructed forces and that measured by a force plate was observed in several instances, clearly demonstrating the capability of smartphones to accurately assist in obtaining human-induced load measurements.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.415-430
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• 2015

Integral abutment bridges have many advantages over bridges with expansion joints in terms of economy and maintenance costs. However, in the design of abutments of integral bridges temperature loads play a crucial role. In addition, seismic loads are readily transferred to the substructure and affect the design of these components significantly. Currently, the European and American bridge design codes consider these two load cases separately in their recommended design load combinations. In this paper, the importance and necessity of combining the thermal and seismic loads is investigated for integral bridges. A 2D finite element combined pile-soil-structure interactive model is used in this evaluation. Nonlinear behavior is assumed for near field soil behind the abutments. The soil around the piles is modeled by nonlinear springs based on p-y curves. The uniform temperature changes occurring at the time of some significant earthquakes around the world are gathered and applied simultaneously with the corresponding earthquake time history ground motions. By comparing the results of these analyses to prescribed AASHTO LRFD load combinations it is observed that pile forces and abutment stresses are affected by this new load combination. This effect is more severe for contraction mode which is caused by negative uniform temperature changes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.375-390
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• 2015

Staircase is a vertical transportation element commonly used in every multistoried structure. Inclined flights of staircase are usually casted monolithically with RC frame. The structural configuration of stairs generally introduces discontinuities into the typical regular reinforced concrete frame composed of beams and columns. Inclined position of flight transfers both vertical as well as horizontal forces in the frame. Under lateral loading, staircase in a multistory RC frame building develops truss action creating a local stiffening effect. In case of seismic event the stiff area around staircase attracts larger force. Therefore, special attention is required while modeling and analyzing the building with staircase. However, in general design practice, designers usually ignore the staircase while modeling either due to ignorance or to avoid complexity. A numerical study has been conducted to examine the effect of ignoring staircase in modeling and design of RC frame buildings while they are really present in structure, may be at different locations. Linear dynamic analysis is performed on nine separate building models to evaluate influence of staircase on dynamic characteristics of building, followed by nonlinear static analysis on the same models to access their seismic performance. It is observed that effect of ignoring staircase in modeling is severe and leads to unsafe structure. Effect of location and orientation of staircase is also important in determining seismic performance of RC frame buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.19-35
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• 2015

This study compares the seismic performances of two reinforced concrete frame specimens tested by the pseudo-dynamic procedure. The pair of 3-storey, 3-bay frames specimens are constructed with typical characteristics of older construction which is lacking seismic design. One of the specimens is a bare frame while the other is infilled with low-strength autoclave aerated concrete (AAC) block masonry. The focus of this study is to investigate the influence of low strength masonry infill walls on the seismic response of older RC frames designed for gravity loads. It is found that the presence of weak infill walls considerably reduce deformations and damage in the upper stories while their influence at the critical ground story is not all that positive. Infill walls tend to localize damage at the critical story due to a peculiar frame-infill interaction, and impose larger internal force and deformation demands on the columns and beams bounding the infills. Therefore the general belief in earthquake engineering that infills develop a second line of defence against lateral forces in seismically deficient frames is nullified in case of low-strength infill walls in the presented experimental research.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.263-275
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• 2015

This study presents conceptual information of newly optimized shapes and connectivity of the so-called outrigger truss system for modern tall buildings that resists lateral loads induced by wind and earthquake forces. In practice, the outrigger truss consists of triangular or Vierendeel types to stiffen tall buildings, and the decision of outrigger design has been qualitatively achieved by only engineers' experience and intuition, including information of structural behaviors, although outrigger shapes and the member's connectivity absolutely affect building stiffness, the input of material, construction ability and so on. Therefore the design of outrigger trusses needs to be measured and determined according to scientific proofs like reliable optimal design tools. In this study, at first the shape and connectivity of an outrigger truss system are visually evaluated by using a conceptual design tool of the classical topology optimization method, and then are quantitatively investigated with respect to a structural safety as stiffness, an economical aspect as material quantity, and construction characteristics as the number of member connection. Numerical applications are studied to verify the effectiveness of the proposed design process to generate a new shape and connectivity of the outrigger for both static and dynamic responses.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2015

Beam-column joints are highly vulnerable locations which are to be designed for high ductility in order to take care of unexpected lateral forces such as wind and earthquake. Previous investigations reveal that the addition of steel fibres to concrete improves its ductility significantly. Also, due to presence of slab the strength and ductility of the beam increases considerably and ignoring the effect of slab can lead to underestimation of beam capacity and defiance of strong column weak beam concept. The influence of addition of steel fibres on the strength and behaviour of steel fibre reinforced high performance concrete (SFRHPC) interior beam-column-slab joints was investigated experimentally. The specimens were subjected to reverse cyclic loading. The variable considered was the volume fraction of crimped steel fibres i.e., 0%, 0.5% and 1.0%. The results show that the addition of steel fibres improves the first crack load, strength, ductility, energy absorption capacity and initial stiffness of the beam.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.61-84
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• 2010

Presented in this paper is the behaviour of asymmetric building isolated by the double variable frequency pendulum isolator (DVFPI). The DVFPI is an adoption of single variable frequency pendulum isolator (VFPI). The geometry and coefficient of friction of top and bottom sliding surfaces can be unequal. The governing equations of motion of the building-isolation system are derived and solved in incremental form. The analysis duly considers the interaction of frictional forces in the two principal directions developed at each sliding surface of the DVFPI. In order to investigate the behaviour of the base isolation using the DVFPI, the coupled lateral-torsional response is obtained under different parametric variations for a set of six far-fault earthquake ground motions and criterion to optimize its performance is proposed. Further, influences of the initial time period, coefficient of friction and frequency variation factors at the two sliding surfaces are investigated. The numerical results of the extensive parametric study help in understanding the torsional behaviour of the structure isolated with the double sliding surfaces as in the DVFPI. It is found that the performance of the DVFPI can be optimized by designing the top sliding surface initially softer and smoother relative to the bottom one.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.637-647
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• 2018

Numerical approach using finite element method has been used to evaluate the behaviour of reinforced concrete frame structure subjected to fire. The structure is previously designed in accordance with Eurocode standards for the design of structures for earthquake resistance, for the ductility class M. Thermal and structural response are obtained using a commercially available software ANSYS. Temperature-dependent nonlinear thermal and mechanical properties are adopted according to Eurocode standards, with the application of constitutive model for the triaxial behaviour of concrete with a smeared crack approach. Discrete modelling of concrete and reinforcement has enabled monitoring of the behaviour at a global, as well as at a local level, providing information on the level of damage occurring during fire. Critical regions in frame structures are identified and assessed, based on temperatures, displacements, variations of internal forces magnitudes and achieved plastic deformations of main reinforcement bars. Parametric analyses are conducted for different fire scenarios and different types of concrete aggregate to determine their effect on global deformations of frame structures. According to analyses results, the three-dimensional finite element model can be used to evaluate the insulation and mechanical resistance criteria of reinforced concrete frame structures subjected to nominal fire curves.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.3
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• pp.243-255
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• 2019

Utilization of fiber beam-column element has gained considerable attention in recent years due mainly to its ability to model distributed plasticity over the length of the element through a number of integration points. However, the relatively high sensitivity of the method to modeling parameters as well as material behavior models can pose a significant challenge. Residual drift is one of the seismic demands which is highly sensitive to modeling parameters and material behavior models. Permanent deformations play a prominent role in the post-earthquake evaluation of serviceability of bridges affected by a near-fault ground shaking. In this research, the influence of distributed plasticity modeling parameters using both force-based and displacement-based fiber elements in the prediction of internal forces obtained from the nonlinear static analysis is studied. Having chosen suitable type and size of elements and number of integration points, the authors take the next step by investigating the influence of material behavioral model employed for the prediction of permanent deformations in the nonlinear dynamic analysis. The result shows that the choice of element type and size, number of integration points, modification of cyclic concrete behavior model and reloading strain of concrete significantly influence the fidelity of fiber element method for the prediction of permanent deformations.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.515-525
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• 2019

The calculation of active earth pressure behind retaining wall is a typical three-dimensional (3D) problem with spatial effects. With the help of limit analysis, this paper firstly deduces the internal energy dissipation power equations and various external forces power equations of the 3D retaining wall under the nonlinear strength condition, such as to establish the work-energy balance equation. The pseudo-static method is used to consider the effect of earthquake on active earth pressure in horizontal state. The failure mode is a 3D curvilinear cone failure mechanism. For the different width of the retaining wall, the plane strain block is inserted in the symmetric plane. By optimizing all parameters, the maximum value of active earth pressure is calculated. In order to verify the validity of the new expressions obtained by the paper, the solutions are compared with previously published solutions. Agreement shows that the new expressions are effective. The results of different parameters are given in the forms of figures to analysis the influence caused by nonlinear strength parameters.