• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1141-1169
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• 2014

This study is aimed to investigate the seismic performance of low-rise precast wall system with base isolation. Three types of High Damping Rubber Bearing (HDRB) were designed to provide effective isolation period of 2.5 s for three different kinds of structure in terms of vertical loading. The real size HDRB was manufactured and tested to obtain the characteristic stiffness as well as damping ratio. In the vertical stiffness test, it was revealed that the HDRB was not an ideal selection to be used in isolating lightweight structure. Time history analysis using 33 real earthquake records classified with respective peak ground acceleration-to-velocity (a/v) ratio was performed for the remaining two types of HDRB with relatively higher vertical loading. HDRB was observed to show significant reduction in terms of base shear and floor acceleration demand in ground excitations having a/v ratio above $0.5g/ms^{-1}$, very much lower than the current classification of $0.8g/ms^{-1}$. In addition, this study also revealed that increasing the damping ratio of base isolation system did not guarantee better seismic performance particularly in isolation of lightweight structure or when the ground excitation was having lower a/v ratio.

• Architectural research
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.99-108
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• 2012

An innovative multi-story Semi-Active Tuned Mass Damper (SATMD) building system is proposed to control seismic response of existing structures. The application of adding new stories as large tuned mass and semi-active (SA) resettable actuators as central features of the control scheme is derived. For the effective control of the structures, the optimal tuning parameters are considered for the large mass ratio, for which a previously proposed equation is used and the practical optimal stiffness is allocated to the actuator stiffness and rubber bearing stiffness. A two-degree-of freedom (2-DOF) model is adopted to verify the principal efficiency of the suggested structural control concept. The simulations for this study utilizes the three ground motions, from SAC project, having probability of exceedance of 50% in 50 years, 10% in 50 years, and 2% in 50 years for the Los Angeles region. 12-story moment resisting frames, which are modified as '12+2' and '12+4' story structures, are investigated to assess the viability and effectiveness of the system that aims to reduce the response of the buildings to earthquakes. The control ability of the SATMD scheme is compared to that of an uncontrolled and an ideal Passive Tuned Mass Damper (PTMD) building system. From the performance results of suggested '12+2' and '12+4' story retrofitting case studies, SATMD systems shows significant promise for application of structural control where extra stories might be added.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.8
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• pp.953-974
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• 2010

The performance of variable dampers for seismic protection of the benchmark highway bridge (phase I) under six real earthquake ground motions is presented. A simplified lumped mass finite-element model of the 91/5 highway bridge in Southern California is used for the investigation. A variable damper, developed from magnetorheological (MR) damper is used as a semi-active control device and its effectiveness with friction force schemes is investigated. A velocity-dependent damping model of variable damper is used. The effects of friction damping of the variable damper on the seismic response of the bridge are examined by taking different values of friction force, step-coefficient and transitional velocity of the damper. The seismic responses with variable dampers are compared with the corresponding uncontrolled case, and controlled by alternate sample control strategies. The results of investigation clearly indicate that the base shear, base moment and mid-span displacement are substantially reduced. In particular, the reduction in the bearing displacement is quite significant. The friction and the two-step friction force schemes of variable damper are found to be quite effective in reducing the peak response quantities of the bridge to a level similar to or better than that of the sample passive, semi-active and active controllers.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.227-242
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• 2019

Seismic isolation systems employ structural control that protect both buildings and vibration-sensitive contents from destructive effects of earthquakes. Structural control is divided into three main groups: passive, active, and semi-active. Among them, semi-active isolation systems, which can reduce floor displacements and accelerations concurrently, has gained importance in recent years since they don't require large power or pose stability problems like active ones. However, their seismic performance may vary depending on the variations that may be observed in the mechanical properties of semi-active devices and/or seismic isolators. Uncertainties relating to isolators can arise from variations in geometry, boundary conditions, material behavior, or temperature, or aging whereas those relating to semi-active control devices can be due to thermal changes, inefficiencies in calibrations, manufacturing errors, etc. For a more realistic evaluation of the seismic behavior of semi-active isolated buildings, such uncertainties must be taken into account. Here, the probabilistic behavior of semi-active isolated buildings under historical pulse-like near-fault earthquakes is evaluated in terms of their performance in preserving structural integrity and protecting vibration-sensitive contents considering aforementioned uncertainties via Monte-Carlo simulations of 3-story and 9-story semi-active isolated benchmark buildings. The results are presented in the form of fragility curves and probability of failure profiles.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.4
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• pp.429-441
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• 2022

A probabilistic assessment of the seismic-excited buildings with a multiple-tuned-mass-damper (MTMD) system is carried out in the presence of uncertainties of the structural model, MTMD system, and the stochastic model of the seismic excitations. A free search optimization procedure of the individual mass, stiffness and, damping parameters of the MTMD system based on the snap-drift cuckoo search (SDCS) optimization algorithm is proposed for the optimal design of the MTMD system. Considering a 10-story structure in three cases equipped with single tuned mass damper (STMS), 5-TMD and 10-TMD, sensitivity analyses are carried out using Sobol' indices based on the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. Considering different seismic performance levels, the reliability analyses are done using MCS and kriging-based MCS methods. The results show the maximum structural responses are more affected by changes in the PGA and the stiffness coefficients of the structural floors and TMDs. The results indicate the kriging-based MCS method can estimate the accurate amount of failure probability by spending less time than the MCS. The results also show the MTMD gives a significant reduction in the structural failure probability. The effect of the MTMD on the reduction of the failure probability is remarkable in the performance levels of life safety and collapse prevention. The maximum drift of floors may be reduced for the nominal structural system by increasing the TMDs, however, the complexity of the MTMD model and increasing its corresponding uncertainty sources can be caused a slight increase in the failure probability of the structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.4
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• pp.305-315
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• 2023

The idea of the combination of the fractional-order operators with the brain emotional learning-based intelligent controller (BELBIC) is developed for implementation in seismic-excited structures equipped with active mass damper (AMD). For this purpose, a new design framework of the mentioned combination namely fractional-order BEBIC (FOBELBIC) is proposed based on a modified-teaching-learning-based optimization (MTLBO) algorithm. The seismic performance of the proposed controller is then evaluated for a 15-story building equipped with AMD subjected to two far-field and two near-field earthquakes. An optimal BELBIC based on the MTLBO algorithm is also introduced for comparison purposes. In comparison with the structure equipped with a passive tuned mass damper (TMD), an average reduction of 44.7% and 42.8% are obtained in terms of the maximum absolute and RMS top floor displacement for FOBELBIC, while these reductions are obtained as 30.4% and 30.1% for the optimal BELBIC, respectively. Similarly, the optimal FOBELBIC results in an average reduction of 42.6% and 39.4% in terms of the maximum absolute and RMS top floor acceleration, while these reductions are given as 37.9% and 30.5%, for the optimal BELBIC, respectively. Consequently, the superiority of the FOBELBIC over the BELBIC is concluded in the reduction of maximum and RMS seismic responses.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.343-358
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• 2023

The superelastic viscous damper (SVD) is a hybrid passive control device comprising a viscoelastic damper and shape memory alloy (SMA) cables connected in series. The SVD is an innovative damper through which a large amount of seismic energy can dissipate. The current study assessed the seismic collapse induced by steel moment-resisting frames (SMRFs) equipped with SVDs and compared them with the performance of special MRFs and buckling restrained brace frames (BRBFs). For this purpose, nonlinear dynamic and incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) were conducted in OpenSees software. Both 5- and 9-story special MRFs, BRBFs, and MRFs equipped with the SVDs were examined. The results indicated that the annual exceedance rate for maximum residual drifts of 0.2% and 0.5% for the BRBFs and MRFs with SVDs, respectively, were considerably less than for SMRFs with reduced-beam section (RBS) connections and that the seismic performances of these structures were enhanced with the use of the BRB and SVD. The probability of collapse due to residual drift in the SVD, BRB, and RBS frames in the 9-story structure was 1.45, 1.75, and 1.05 times greater than for the 5-story frame.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.53-61
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• 2020

This study proposes a new damper configuration for seismic performance improvement of heavy sliding facilities inside a building. For this purpose, we deal with two connection types of control system, and the parametric study has been performed to investigate their comparative seismic performances according to the variations of the control capacity. In order to simulate the seismic responses of the proposed system, we employed a recently-developed seismic response analysis method that can deal with the two-mass system with nonlinear frictional sliding behavior. The numerical results demonstrate that the typical method of diagonal bracing damper connection can exhibit effective control performance both on structure and the heavy sliding facilities, whereas the structure-facilities connection method does not show any control effect on both responses. On the other hand, the typical method has some limitations that it can adversely cause excessive sliding of the facilities, depending upon the frequency characteristics of structure and earthquake. On the contrary, the structure-facilities connection method is very effective in reducing the sliding displacement of the heavy facilities, even with small amount of control capacity. Thus, the following potential expectations can be inferred from these results: The typical diagonal bracing damper connection method will have some promising benefits in controlling the sliding facilities inside the building as well as the building itself, and the structure-facilities connection method can be a cost-effective way of protecting the internal heavy important facilities inside the structure already designed with sufficient seismic performance.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.149-161
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• 2012

The use of seismic energy-dissipative devices for passive control is increasing exponentially in the recent years for both new and existing buildings. Use of these devices started in and has been somewhat limited to developed countries. One of the current challenges is to promote the use of seismic dampers in earthquake-prone developing countries by lowering the cost of the devices. This paper proposed a new type of seismic damper based on yielding of a cantilever type metallic element for seismic retrofit of existing and new building structures. The hysteretic behavior and energy dissipation capacity of the proposed damper was investigated using component tests under cyclic loads. The experimental results indicated that the damping device had stable restoring force characteristics and a high energy dissipation capacity. Based on these results, a simple hysteretic model for predicting the load-displacement curve of the seismic damper was proposed.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.33-42
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• 2004

The usual practice of placing viscoelastic dampers (VED) in the inter-story of building structures frequently interfere with spatial planning and obstruct internal view. These shortcomings can be overcome by installing VED in seismic joints or in expansion joints which are usually hidden under a cover. This study investigates the effect of installing VED in seismic joints to reduce earthquake-induced dynamic reponses. Parametric studies were conducted using 3-DOF systems connected by VED and subjected to earthquake excitations to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Nonlinear dynamic analyses were carried out with five-story structures composed of different structure systems and connected by seismic joints. According to the analysis results the use of VED in seismic joints turned out to be effective as long as the natural frequencies of the connected structures are different enough.