• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.417-437
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• 2017

This paper shows a comparative study for design of reinforced concrete boundary combined footings of trapezoidal and rectangular forms supporting two columns and each column transmits an axial load and a moment around of the axis X (transverse axis of the footing) and other moment around of the axis Y (longitudinal axis of the footing) to foundation to obtain the most economical combined footing. The real soil pressure acting on the contact surface of the footings is assumed as a linear variation. Methodology used to obtain the dimensions of the footings for the two models consider that the axis X of the footing is located in the same position of the resultant, i.e., the dimensions is obtained from the position of the resultant. The main part of this research is to present the differences between the two models. Results show that the trapezoidal combined footing is more economical compared to the rectangular combined footing. Therefore, the new model for the design of trapezoidal combined footings should be used, and complies with real conditions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.297-319
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• 2013

Two destructive earthquakes occurred on October 23 and November 9, 2011 in Van province of Turkey. The damage in residential units shows significant deviation from the expectation of decreasing damage with increasing distance to epicenter. The most damaged settlement Ercis has the same distance to the epicenter with Muradiye, where no damage occurred while relatively less damage observed in Van having half distance. These three cities seem to have resembling soil conditions. If the damages are evaluated: joint failures and insufficient lap splice lengths are observed to be the main causes of the total collapses in RC buildings. Additionally, low concrete strength, reinforcement detailing mistakes, soft story, heavy overhang, pounding and short columns are among other damage reasons. Examples of damages due to non-structural elements are also given. Remarkable points about seismic damages are: collapsed buildings with shear-walls, heavily damaged buildings despite adequate concrete strength due to detailing mistakes, undamaged two-story adobe buildings close to totally collapsed RC ones and undamaged structural system in buildings with heavily damaged non-structural elements. On the contrary of the common belief that buildings with shear-walls are immune to total collapse among civil engineers, collapse of Gedikbulak primary school is a noteworthy example.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.327-341
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• 2020

Advanced forms of structural design (e.g., displacement-based methods) require knowledge of the non-linear force-displacement behavior of both the overall building and individual lateral load resisting elements, i.e., walls or building cores. Similarly, understanding the non-linear behaviour of the elements in a structure can also allow for a less conservative structural response to be calculated by better understanding the cracked (i.e., effective) properties of the various RC elements. Calculating the non-linear response of an RC section typically involves using 'black box' analysis packages, wherein the user may not be in complete control nor be aware of all the intricate settings and/or decisions behind the scenes. This paper introduces a user-friendly and transparent analysis program for predicting the back-bone force displacement behavior of slender (i.e., flexure controlled) RC walls, building cores or columns. The program has been validated and benchmarked theoretically against both commonly available and widely used analysis packages and experimentally against a database of 16 large-scale RC wall test specimens. The program, which is called WHAM, is written using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to promote transparency and allow users to further develop or modify to suit individual requirements. The program is available free-of-charge and is intended to be used as an educational tool for structural designers, researchers or students.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.279-294
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• 2020

Foundation of a building is damaged under service loads during construction. First visit shows that the foundation has been punched at the 6 column's foot region led to building rotation. Foundation shear punching occurring has made some stresses and deflections in construction. In this study, progressing of damage caused by foundation shear punching and inverse loading in order to resolve the building rotation has been evaluated in the foundation and frame of building by finite element modeling in ABAQUS software. The stress values of bars in punched regions of foundation has been deeply exceeded from steel yielding strength and experienced large displacement based on software's results. On the other hand, the values of created stresses in the frame are not too big to make serious damage. In the beams and columns of ground floor, some partial cracks has been occurred and in other floors, the values of stresses are in the elastic zone of materials. Finally, by inverse loading to the frame, the horizontal displacement of floors has been resolved and the values of stresses in frame has been significantly reduced.

• 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.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.523-532
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• 2010

If an infill wall in a reinforced concrete frame is shorter than the column height and there is no initial gap between the column and the infill wall, the short column effect can occur during an earthquake shaking. This form of damage is frequently observed in many earthquake-damaged buildings all around the world and especially in Turkey. In this study, an effective method, which consists of placing additional infill wall segments surrounding the short column, to prevent this type of failure is examined. The influence of adding infill wall in the reduction of the shear force in the short column is also investigated. A parametric study is carried out for one-storey infilled frames with one to five bays using the percentage of the additional infill wall surrounding the short column and the number of spans as the parameters. Then the investigation is extended to a case of a multistorey building damaged due to short column effect during the 1998 Adana-Ceyhan earthquake in Turkey. The results show that the addition of the infill walls around the potential short columns is an effective way to significantly reduce the shear force.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.731-738
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• 2017

Reinforced concrete flat plates consist of slabs supported directly on columns. The absence of beams makes these systems attractive due to advantages such as economical formwork, shorter construction time, less total building height with more clear space and architectural flexibility. Punching shear failure is usually the governing failure mode of flat plate structures. Punching failure is brittle in nature which induces more vulnerability to this type of structure. To analyze the flat plate behavior under punching shear, twelve finite element models of flat plate on a column with different parameters have been developed and verified with experimental results. The maximum range of variation of punching stress, obtained numerically, is within 10% of the experimental results. Additional finite element models have been developed to analyze the influence of integrity reinforcement, clear cover and column reinforcement. Variation of clear cover influences the punching capacity of flat plate. Proposed finite element model can be a substitute to mechanical model to understand the influence of clear cover. Variation of slab thickness along with column reinforcement has noteworthy impact on punching capacity. From the study it has been noted that integrity reinforcement can increase the punching capacity as much as 19 percent in terms of force and 101 percent in terms of deformation.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.435-445
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• 2019

The collapses of curved bridges are mainly caused by the damaged columns, subjected to the combined loadings of axial load, shear force, flexural moment and torsional moment, under earthquakes. However, these combined loadings have not been fully investigated. This paper firstly investigated the mechanical characteristics of the bending-torsion coupling effects, based on the seismic response spectrum analysis of 24 curved bridge models. And then 9 reinforced concrete (RC) and circular column specimens were tested, by changing the bending-tortion ratio (M/T), axial compression ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and spiral reinforcement ratio, respectively. The results show that the bending-torsion coupling effects of piers are more significant, along with the decrease of girder curvature and the increase of pier height. The M/T ratio ranges from 6 to 15 for common cases, and influences the crack distribution, plastic zone and hysteretic curve of piers. And these seismic characteristics are also influenced by the compression ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and spiral reinforcement ratios of piers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.505-514
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• 2021

A formulation based on structural reliability and cost effectiveness is proposed to provide recommendations to select the best retrofit strategy for schools with reinforced concrete frames and masonry walls, among three proposed alternatives. The cost calculation includes the retrofit cost and the expected costs of failure consequences. Also, the uncertainty of the seismic hazard is considered for each school site. The formulation identifies the potential failure modes, among shear and bending forces for beams, and flexure-compression forces for columns, for each school, and the seismic damages suffered by the schools after the earthquake of September 17, 2017 are taken into account to calibrate the damaged conditions per school. The school safety level is measured through its global failure probability, instead of only the local failure probability. The proposed retrofit alternatives are appraised in terms of the cost/benefit balance under future earthquakes, for the respective site seismic hazard, as opposed to the current practice of just restoring the structure original resistance. The best retrofit is the one that corresponds to the minimum value of the expected life cycle cost. The study, with further developments, may be used to develop general recommendations to retrofit schools located at seismic zones.