• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.287-299
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• 2022

Rather than using smartphones as seismometers with designated locations and orientations, this study proposes to employ crowds' smartphones in buildings to perform fast safety assessment of buildings. The principal advantage of using crowds' smartphones is the potential to monitor the safety of millions of buildings without hardware costs, installation labor, and long-term maintenance. This study's goal is to measure the maximum interstory drift ratios during earthquake excitation using crowds' smartphones. Beacons inside the building are required to provide the location and relevant building information for the smartphones via Bluetooth. Wi-Fi Direct is employed between nearby smartphones to conduct peer-to-peer time synchronization and exchange the acceleration data measured. An algorithm to align the orientation between nearby smartphones is proposed, and the performance of the orientation alignment, interstory drift measurement, and damage level estimation are studied numerically. Finally, the proposed approach's performance is verified using large-scale shaking table tests of a scaled steel building. The results presented in this study illustrate the potential to use crowds' smartphones with the proposed approach to record building motions during earthquakes and use those data to estimate buildings' safety based on the interstory drift ratios measured.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.67-81
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• 2019

Rows of closely adjacent buildings with similar dynamic characteristics are common building arrangements in residential areas. In this paper, we present a vibration control strategy for the seismic protection of this kind of multibuilding systems. The proposed approach uses an advanced Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) computational procedure to carry out the integrated design of distributed multiactuation schemes that combine interbuilding linking devices with interstory actuators implemented at different levels of the buildings. The controller designs are formulated as static output-feedback H-infinity control problems that include the interstory drifts, interbuilding approachings and control efforts as controlled-output variables. The advantages of the LMI computational procedure are also exploited to design a fully-decentralized velocity-feedback controller, which can define a passive control system with high-performance characteristics. The main ideas are presented by means of a system of three adjacent five-story identical buildings, and a proper set of numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the behavior of the different control configurations. The obtained results indicate that interstory-interbuilding multiactuation schemes can be used to design effective vibration control systems for adjacent buildings with similar dynamic characteristics. Specifically, this kind of control systems is able to mitigate the vibrational response of the individual buildings while maintaining reduced levels of pounding risk.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.245-267
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• 2013

During preliminary design of a RC building located in a seismic area, having quick but reliable analytical measurement of interstory drifts and storey stiffnesses might be helpful in order to check the fulfillment of damage limit state and stiffness regularity in elevation required by seismic design codes. This paper presents two approximate methods, strongly interrelated each other, and addressed to achieve each of these two purposes for frame buildings. A brief description of some already existing methods addressed to the same aims is included to compare the main differences in terms of general approaches and assumptions. Both new approximate methods are then applied to 9 'ideal' frames and 2 'real' buildings designed according to the Italian seismic code. The results are compared with the 'exact' values obtained by the code-based standard calculation, performed via FEM models, showing a satisfactory range of accuracy. Compared with those by the other methods from literature, they indicate the proposed procedures lead to a better approximation of the objective structural parameters, especially for those buildings designed according to the modern 'capacity design' philosophy.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.791-818
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• 2013

The seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures with irregularities leading to soft first floor is studied using capacity assessment procedures. The soft first story effect is investigated for the cases: (i) slab-column connections without beams at the first floor, (ii) tall first story height and (iii) pilotis type building (open ground story). The effects of the first floor irregularity on the RC frame structure performance stages at global and local level (limit states) are investigated. Assessment based on the Capacity Spectrum Method (ATC-40) and on the Coefficient Method (FEMA 356) is also examined. Results in terms of failure modes, capacity curves, interstory drifts, ductility requirements and infills behaviour are presented. From the results it can be deduced that the global capacity of the structures is decreased due to the considered first floor morphology irregularities in comparison to the capacities of the regular structure. An increase of the demands for interstory drift is observed at the first floor level due to the considered irregularities while the open ground floor structure (pilotis type) led to even higher values of interstory drift demands at the first story. In the cases of tall first story and slab-column connections without beams soft-story mechanisms have also been observed at the first floor. Rotational criteria (EC8-part3) showed that the structure with slab-column connections without beams exhibited the most critical response.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.427-434
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• 2003

In this study, the control performances of Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) and Tuned Liquid Column Damper (TLCD) are evaluated and compared for seismically excited structures. Results show that TLCD is more effective than TMD for interstory drift control while TLCD is as effective as TMD for acceleration control. In special, it is shown that interstory drifts are maximally controlled in lower floors and accelerations are reduced most in upper floors. This indicates that TLCD is an effective controller for earthquake-induced structures in terms of structural safety as well as serviceability.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.133-152
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• 2015

This paper investigates the soil effect on seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings by using the spread plastic hinge model which includes material and geometric nonlinearity of the structural members. Therefore, typical reinforced concrete frame buildings are selected and nonlinear dynamic time history analyses and pushover analyses are performed. Three earthquake acceleration records are selected for nonlinear dynamic time history analyses. These records are adjusted to be compatible with the design spectrum defined in Turkish Seismic Code. Interstory drifts and damages of selected buildings are compared according to local soil classes. Also, capacity curves of these buildings are compared with maximum responses obtained from nonlinear dynamic time history analyses. The results show that, soil class influences the seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete buildings, significantly.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.381-397
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• 2021

Based on the spatial substructure hybrid simulation test (SHST) method, the seismic performance of a high-strength steel composite K-eccentrically braced frame (K-HSS-EBF) structure system is studied. First, on the basis of the existing pseudostatic experiments, a numerical model corresponding to the experimental model was established using OpenSees, which mainly simulated the shear effect of the shear links. A three-story and five-span spatial K-HSS-EBF was taken as the prototype, and SHST was performed with a half-scale SHST model. According to the test results, the validity of the SHST model was verified, and the main seismic performance indexes of the experimental substructure under different seismic waves were studied. The results show that the hybrid simulation results are basically consistent with the numerical simulation results of the global structure. The deformation of each story is mainly concentrated in the web of the shear link owing to shear deformation. The maximum interstory drifts of the model structure during Strength Level Earthquake (SLE) and Maximum Considered Earthquake (MCE) meet the demands of interstory limitations in the Chinese seismic design code of buildings. In conclusion, the seismic response characteristics of the K-HSS-EBFs are successfully simulated using the spatial SHST, which shows that the K-HSS-EBFs have good seismic performance.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.287-294
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• 2002

An automatic design method of steel frames using nonlinear analysis is developed. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by the use of stability functions. A direct search method is used as an automatic design technique. The unit value of each member is evaluated by using LRFD Interaction equation. The member with the largest unit value Is replaced one by one with an adjacent larger member selected in the database. The weight of the steel frame is taken as an objective function. Load-carrying capacities, deflections, interstory drifts, and ductility requirement are used as constraint functions. Case study of a three-dimensional two story frame are presented.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.109-126
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• 2011

The inelastic earthquake response of non-symmetric, braced steel buildings, designed according to the EC3 (steel structures) and EC8 (earthquake resistant design) codes, is investigated using 1, 3 and 5-story models, subjected to a set of 10, two-component, semi-artificial motions, generated to match the design spectrum. It is found that in these buildings, the so-called "flexible" edge frames exhibit higher ductility demands and interstory drifts than the "stiff" edge frames. We note that the same results were reported in an earlier study for reinforced concrete buildings and are the opposite of what was predicted in several other studies based on the over simplified, hence very popular, one-story, shear-beam type models. The substantial differences in such demands between the two sides suggest a need for reassessment of the pertinent code provisions. In a follow up paper, a design modification will be introduced that can lead to a more uniform distribution of ductility demands in the elements of all building edges. This investigation is another step towards more rational design of non-symmetric steel buildings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.333-350
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• 2013

This paper deals with the development of expressions relating structural seismic response parameters to the epicentral distances of an earthquake and the natural period of several reinforced concrete buildings (6, 9 and 12 storey), with three floor plans: symmetric, monosymmetric, and unsymmetric. These structures are subjected to seismic spectrum of accelerations collected during the Boumerdes earthquake (Algeria, May $21^{st}$, 2003, Mw=6.8) at different epicentral distances. The objective of this study is to develop relations between structural responses namely: base shear, storey displacements, interstory drifts and epicentral distance and fundamental period for a given earthquake. The seismic response of the buildings is carried out in both longitudinal transverse and directions by the response spectrum method (modal spectral approach).