• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.615-636
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• 2000

Some elevated water tanks have failed due to torsional vibrations in past earthquakes. The overall axisymmetric structural geometry and mass distribution of such structures may leave only a small accidental eccentricity between centre of stiffness and centre of mass. Such a small accidental eccentricity is not expected to cause a torsional failure. This paper studies the possibility of amplified torsional behaviour of elevated water tanks due to such small accidental eccentricity in the elastic as well as inelastic range; using two simple idealized systems with two coupled lateral-torsional degrees of freedom. The systems are capable of retaining the characteristics of two extreme categories of water tanks namely, a) tanks on staging with less number of columns and panels and b) tanks on staging with large number of columns and panels. The study shows that the presence of a small eccentricity may lead to large displacement of the staging edge in the elastic range, if the torsional-to-lateral time period ratio $({\tau})$ of the elevated tanks lies within a critical range of 0.7< ${\tau}$ <1.25. Inelastic behaviour study reveals that such excessive displacement in some of the reinforced concrete staging elements may cause unsymmetric yielding. This may lead to progressive strength deterioration through successive yielding in same elements under cyclic loading during earthquakes. Such localized strength drop progressively develop large strength eccentricity resulting in large localized inelastic displacement and ductility demand, leading to failure. So, elevated water tanks should have ${\tau}$ outside the said critical range to avoid amplified torsional response. The tanks supported on staging with less number of columns and panels are found to have greater torsional vulnerability. Tanks located near faults seem to have torsional vulnerability for large ${\tau}$.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.23-40
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• 2003

The steady state response of a torsionally coupled system with tuned mass dampers (TMDs) to external wind-induced harmonic excitation is presented. The torsionally coupled system is considered as one-way eccentric system. The eccentricity considered in the system is accidental eccentricity only. The performance of single tuned mass damper (TMD) optimally designed without considering the torsion is investigated for the torsionally coupled system and found that the effectiveness of a single TMD is significantly reduced due to torsion in the system. However, the design of TMD system without considering the torsion is only justified for torsionally stiff systems. Further, the optimum parameters of a single TMD considering the accidental eccentricity are obtained using numerical searching technique for different values of uncoupled torsional to lateral frequency ratio and aspect ratio of the system. The optimally designed single TMD system is found to be less effective for torsionally coupled system in comparison to uncoupled system. This is due to the fact that a torsionally coupled system has two natural frequencies of vibration, as a result, at least two TMDs are required which can control both lateral and torsional response of the system. The optimum damper parameters of different alternate arrangements such as (i) two identical TMDs placed at opposite corners, (ii) two independent TMDs and (iii) four TMDs are evaluated for minimum response of the system. The comparative performance of the above TMDs arrangements is also studied for both torsionally coupled and uncoupled systems. It is found that four TMDs arrangement is quite effective solution for vibration control of torsionally coupled system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.599-614
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• 2021

This study deals with the Lateral-Torsional Buckling (LTB) of a mono-symmetric tapered I-beam, in which the cross-section is varying longitudinally. To obtain the buckling moment, two concentrated bending moments should be applied at the two ends of the structure. This structure is made of Functionally Graded Material (FGM). The Young's and shear modules change linearly along the longitudinal direction of the beam. It is considered that this tapered beam is laterally restrained continuously, by using torsional springs. Furthermore, two rotational bending springs are employed at the two structural ends. To achieve the buckling moment, Ritz solution method is utilized. The response of critical buckling moment of the beam is obtained by minimizing the total potential energy relation. The lateral and torsional displacement fields of the beam are interpolated by harmonic functions. These functions satisfy the boundary conditions. Two different support conditions are considered in this study. The obtained formulation is validated by solving benchmark problems. Moreover, some numerical studies are implemented to show the accuracy, efficiency and high performance of the proposed formulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.67 no.6
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• pp.671-682
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• 2018

The effect of earthquake induced torsion, due to mass eccentricities, is investigated with the objective of providing practical design guidelines for minimizing the torsional response of building structures. Current code provisions recommend performing three dimensional static or dynamic analyses, which involve shifting the centers of the floor masses from their nominal positions to what is called an accidental eccentricity. This procedure however may significantly increase the design cost of multistory buildings, due to the numerous possible spatial combinations of mass eccentricities and it is doubtful whether such a cost would be justifiable. This paper addresses this issue on a theoretical basis and investigates the torsional response of asymmetric multistory buildings in relation to their behavior when all floor masses lie on the same vertical line. This approach provides an insight on the overall seismic response of buildings and reveals how the torsional response of a structure is influenced by an arbitrary spatial combination of mass eccentricities. It also provides practical guidelines of how a structural configuration may be designed to sustain minor torsion, which is the main objective of any practicing engineer. A parametric study is presented on 9-story common building types having a mixed-type lateral load resisting system (frames, walls, coupled wall bents) and representative heightwise variations of accidental eccentricities.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.801-812
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• 2016

In an actual design, none of the structures with shear behaviors will be designed for torsional moments. Any failure or damages to roofs, infills, shear walls, and braces caused by an earthquake, will inevitably result in relocation of center of mass and rigidity of the structure. With these changes, the dynamic characteristics of structure could be changed during an earthquake at any moment. The main objective of this paper is to obtain the relationship between time-varying eccentricity of load and corner lateral displacement. In this study, various methods have been used to determine the structural response for time-varying lateral corner displacement. As will be seen below, some of the structural calculation methods result in a significant deviation from the actual results, although these methods include the interaction effects of modes. Controlling the lateral displacement of structure can be performed in different ways such as, passive dampers, friction dampers, semi-active systems including the MR damper and active Systems. Selecting and locating these control systems is very important to bring the maximum safety with minimum cost into the structure. According to this study will be show the relation between the corner lateral displacements of structure and time-varying eccentricity by different kind of methods during an earthquake. This study will show that the response of the structure at the corners due to an earthquake can be very destructive and because of changing the eccentricity of load, calculating the maximum possible response of system can be carried out by this method. Finally, some kind of systems must be used for controlling these displacements. The results shows that, the CQC, DSC and exact methods is comply each other but the results of Vanmark method is not comfortable for these kind of buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.423-442
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• 2015

The effects of accidental eccentricity on the seismic response of four-storey steel buildings laterally stabilized by buckling restrained braced frames are studied. The structures have a square, symmetrical footprint, without inherent eccentricity between the center of lateral resistance (CR) and the center of mass (CM). The position of the bracing bents in the buildings was varied to obtain three different levels of torsional sensitivity: low, intermediate and high. The structures were designed in accordance with the seismic design provisions of the 2010 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). Three different analysis methods were used to account for accidental eccentricity in design: (1) Equivalent Static Procedure with static in-plane torsional moments assuming a mass eccentricity of 10% of the building dimension (ESP); (2) Response Spectrum Analysis with static torsional moments based on 10% of the building dimension (RSA-10); and (3) Response Spectrum Analysis with the CM being displaced by 5% of the building dimension (RSA-5). Time history analyses were performed under a set of eleven two-component historical records. The analyses showed that the ESP and RSA-10 methods can give appropriate results for all three levels of torsional sensitivity. When using the RSA-5 method, adequate performance was also achieved for the low and intermediate torsional sensitivity cases, but the method led to excessive displacements (5-10% storey drifts), near collapse state, for the highly torsionally sensitive structures. These results support the current provisions of NBCC 2010.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.220-226
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• 2002

A general solution method is presented to obtain the unbalance response orbit from the finite element based equations of motion of a gear-coupled two-shaft rotor-bearing system. Particularly, are proposed the analytical solutions of major and minor axis radii of the orbit. The method has been applied to analyze the unbalance response of a 800 refrigeration-ton turbo-chiller rotor-bearing system, having a bull-pinion speed increasing gear. The bumps of unbalance responses have been observed at the first torsional natural frequency due to the coupling of lateral and torsional dynamics by the gear meshing. Further, the proposed analytical solutions have been validated with results obtained by a full numerical approach.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.283-295
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• 2022

Seismic design codes permit the use of Equivalent Static Analysis of buildings considering torsional eccentricity e with dynamic amplification factors on structural eccentricity and some accidental eccentricity. Estimation of e in buildings is not addressed in codes. This paper presents a simple approximate method to estimate e in RC Moment Frame and RC Structural Wall buildings, which required no detailed structural analysis. The method is validated by 3D analysis (using commercial structural analysis software) of a spectrum of building. Results show that dynamic amplification factor should be applied on torsional eccentricity when performing Response Spectrum Analysis also. Also, irregular or mixed modes of oscillation arise in torsionally unsymmetrical buildings owing to poor geometric distribution of mass and stiffness in plan, which is captured by the mass participation ratio. These irregular modes can be avoided in buildings of any plan geometry by limiting the two critical parameters (normalised torsional eccentricity e/B and Natural Period Ratio 𝜏 =T_𝜃/T, where B is building lateral dimension, T_𝜃 uncoupled torsional natural period and T uncoupled translational natural period). Suggestions are made for new building code provisions.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-35
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• 2000

Dynamic response of a three span continuous bridge has been determined by full scale experiments on the bridge. In the experiments, a heavy vehicle was driven across the bridge at different speeds and along different lanes of travel and the strains were recorded at different locations. The bridge was made of reinforced concrete and was asymmetric in plan and in elevation. Frequencies and modes of vibration excited by the vehicle were determined. The dependence of the dynamic amplification on bridge location and vehicle speed was investigated and dynamic amplifications up to 1.5 were recorded, which was higher than values predicted by bridge design codes. It was evident that when this asymmetric bridge was loaded by an asymmetric forcing function, higher modes, which are lateral and/or torsional in nature, were excited. Dynamic modulus of elasticity and the support stiffness influenced the natural frequencies of the bridge, which in turn influenced the dynamic amplifications. Larger than anticipated dynamic amplification factors and the excitation of lateral and/or torsional modes should be of interest and concern to bridge engineers.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.43-51
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• 2017

The demand for skyscrapers is increasing worldwide. Until now, various lateral resistance structures have been used for lateral displacement control of high-rise buildings. An outrigger damper system has been introduced recently to improve lateral dynamic response control performance further. However, a study of outrigger damper system is yet to be sufficiently investigated. In this study, time history analysis was performed to investigate the control performance of an outrigger damper system of high-rise building under eccentric loading. To do this, an actual scale 3-dimensional tall building model with an outrigger damper system was prepared. The control performance of the outrigger damper system was evaluated by varying stiffness and damping values. On the top floor torsional angle response to the earthquake load, was greatly affected by damping value. And the displacement response was affected greatly by the stiffness value and damping value of damper system. In conclusion, it is necessary to select the proper damping and stiffness values of the outrigger damper system.