• 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.2 no.1
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• pp.81-94
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• 1994

It is well recognized that structures designed to resist strong ground motions should be able to withstand substantial inelastic deformations. A simple procedure has been developed in this paper to monitor the dynamic earthquake response (time-history analysis) of both steel and concrete multistorey buildings in the inelastic range. The building is treated as a shear beam model with three degrees of freedom per floor. The entire analysis has been programmed to run on a microcomputer and can output time histories of displacements, velocities, accelerations and member internal forces at any desired location. A record of plastic hinge formation and restoration to elastic state is also provided. Such information can be used in aseismic analysis and design of multistorey buildings so as to control the damage and optimize their performance.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.211-225
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• 1994

Responses of asymmetrical multistorey buildings to earthquakes are obtained by quasi-static code approach and real time dynamic analysis, using two different structural models. In the first model, all vertical members are assumed to be restrained at the slab levels and hence their end rotations, about horizontal axes, are taken as zero. In the second model this restriction is removed and the rotation is assumed to be proportional to the lateral stiffness of the member. A simple microcomputer based procedure is used in the analyses, by both models. Numerical examples are presented where results obtained from both the models are given. Effects of modelling on the response of three buildings, each with a different type and degree of asymmetry, are studied. Results for deflections and shear forces are presented and the effects of the type of model on the response are discussed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.163-175
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• 2010

The vertical axis through the modal center of rigidity (m-CR) is used for interpreting the code torsional provisions in the design of eccentric multi-story building structures. The concept of m-CR has been demonstrated by the author in an earlier paper and the particular feature of this point is that when the vertical line of the centers of mass at the floor levels is passing through m-CR, minimum base torsion is developed. For this reason the aforesaid axis is used as reference axis for implementing the code provisions required by the equivalent static analysis. The study examines uniform mixed-bent-type multistory buildings with simple eccentricity, ranging from torsionally stiff to torsionally flexible systems. Using the results of a dynamic response spectrum analysis as a basis for comparisons, it is shown that the results of the code static design are on the safe side in torsionally stiff buildings, but unable to predict the required strength of bents on the stiff side of systems with a predominantly torsional response. Suggestions are made for improving the code provisions in such cases.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.129-136
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• 1999

This research proposes an effective analytical methodology for vertical vibration of three dimensional frame structures including slabs. The consideration of slabs, although allows more precise results, requires large amount of computer time and memory space due to the use of plane stress elements. In consideration of these problems, a method to properly manage nodal points and degrees of freedom is proposed based on matrix condensation technique. Also studied is the use of substructure method to obtain fast and reliable results with simple input data when they are applied to conventional building structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.691-710
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• 2012

One of the most popular and commonly used strengthening techniques to protect against earthquakes is to infill the holes in reinforced concrete (RC) frames with fully reinforced concrete infills. In some cases, windows and door openings are left inside infill walls for architectural or functional reasons during the strengthening of reinforced concrete-framed buildings. However, the seismic performance of multistory, multibay, reinforced concrete frames that are strengthened by reinforced concrete wing walls is not well known. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the experimental behavior of vulnerable multistory, multibay, reinforced concrete frames that were strengthened by introducing wing walls under a lateral load. For this purpose, three 2-story, 2-bay, 1/3-scale test specimens were constructed and tested under reversed cyclic lateral loading. The total shear wall (including the column and wing walls) length and the location of the bent beam bars were the main parameters of the experimental study. According to the test results, the addition of wing walls to reinforced concrete frames provided significantly higher ultimate lateral load strength and higher initial stiffness than the bare frames did. While the total shear wall length was increased, the lateral load carrying capacity and stiffness increased significantly.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.463-484
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• 2015

Modern codes for earthquake resistant building design require consideration of the so-called accidental design eccentricity, to account for torsional response caused by several factors not explicitly considered in design. This provision requires that the mass centres in the building floor be moved a certain percentage of the building's dimension (usually 5%) along both the x and y axes and in both positive and negative directions. If one considers also the spatial combinations of the two component motion in a dynamic analysis of the building, the number of required analyses and combinations increases substantially, causing a corresponding work load increase for practicing structural engineers. Another shortcoming of this code provision is that its introduction has been based primarily on elastic results from investigations of oversimplified, hence questionable, one story building models. This problem is addressed in the present paper using four groups of eccentric braced steel buildings, designed in accordance with Eurocodes 3 (steel) and 8 (earthquake design), with and without accidental eccentricities considered. The results indicate that although accidental design eccentricities can lead to somewhat reduced inelastic response demands, the benefit is not significant from a practical point of view. This leads to suggestions that accidental design eccentricities should probably be abolished or perhaps replaced by a simpler and more effective design provision, at least for torsionally stiff buildings that constitute the vast majority of buildings encountered in practice.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.505-526
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• 2005

The influence of the inter-story structural pounding on the seismic behaviour of adjacent multistory reinforced concrete structures with unequal total heights and different story heights is investigated. Although inter-story pounding is a common case in practice, it has not been studied before in the literature as far as the authors are aware. Fifty two pounding cases, each one for two different seismic excitations, are examined. From the results it can be deduced that: (i) The most important issue in the inter-story pounding is the local effect on the external column of the tall building that suffers the impact from the upper floor slab of the adjacent shorter structure. (ii) The ductility demands for this column are increased comparing with the ones without the pounding effect. In the cases that the two buildings are in contact these demands appear to be critical since they are higher than the available ductility values. In the cases that there is a small distance between the interacting buildings the ductility demands of this column are also higher than the ones of the same column without the pounding effect but they appear to be lower than the available ductility values. (iii) It has to be stressed that in all the examined cases the developed shear forces of this column exceeded the shear strength. Thus, it can be concluded that in inter-story pounding cases the column that suffers the impact is always in a critical condition due to shear action and, furthermore, in the cases that the two structures are in contact from the beginning this column appears to be critical due to high ductility demands as well. The consequences of the impact can be very severe for the integrity of the column and may be a primary cause for the initiation of the collapse of the structure. This means that special measures have to be taken in the design process first for the critically increased shear demands and secondly for the high ductility demands.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2017

In this paper, the influence of the rotational component, about a vertical axis, of earthquake ground motion on the response of building structures subjected to seismic action is considered. The torsional component of ground motion is generated from the records of translational components. Torsional component of ground motion is then, together with translational components, applied in numerical linear dynamic analysis of different reinforced concrete framed structure of three stories buildings. In total, more than 40 numerical models were created and analyzed. The obtained results show clearly the dependence of the effects of the torsional seismic component on structural system and soil properties. Thus, the current approach in seismic codes of accounting for the effects of accidental torsion due to the torsional ground motion, by shifting the center of mass, should be reevaluated.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.55-74
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• 2017

The evaluation of torsional effects on multistory buildings remains an open issue, despite considerable research efforts and numerous publications. In this study, a large number of multiple test structures are considered with normally distributed topological attributes, in order to quantify the statistically derived relationships between the torsional criteria and response parameters. The linear regression analysis results, depict that the center of twist and the ratio of torsion (ROT) index proved numerically to be the most reliable criteria for the prediction of the modal rotation and displacements, however the residuals distribution and R-squared derived for the ductility demands prediction, was not constant and low respectively. Thus, the assessment of the torsional parameters' contribution to the nonlinear structural response was investigated using artificial neural networks. Utilizing the connection weights approach, the Center of Strength, Torsional Stiffness and the Base Shear Torque curves were found to exhibit the highest impact numerically, while all the other torsional indices' contribution was investigated and quantified.