• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.195-206
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• 2022

Significant structural damages due to earthquakes reveal the importance of seismic design provisions. This paper presents a comparison between the seismic design provisions of Albania, Croatia, Iran, and Turkey for the design of mid-rise reinforced-concrete (RC) frames. Information on the historical development of the considered provisions are given. The code provisions are compared, illustrating the main differences in the minimum requirements for column and beam detailing and analysis for mid-rise RC frames. 4-story, 5-story, and 6-story buildings are designed according to each design code, and their performance is evaluated comparatively by using a displacement-based adaptive pushover procedure and eigenvalue analysis. It is observed that recent Turkish code has the highest and Albanian code has the lowest level of requirements in terms of member size and reinforcement detailing. The considered models indicate 15%, 20% and 50%, lower period values than the Croatia, Iran and Albania buildings, respectively. Additionally, building models per Croatia, Iran and Albania codes have 30%, 35% and 65% less base shear capacity when compared to Turkish building codes. Building models per Croatia and Iran codes indicate similar properties both in terms of strength and stiffness.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.497-507
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• 2017

During recent earthquakes, a significant number of concrete structures suffered extensive damage. Conventional reinforced concrete structures are designed for life-time safety that may see permanent inelastic deformation after severe earthquakes. Hence, there is a need to utilize adequate materials that have the ability to tolerate large deformation and get back to their original shape. Super-elastic shape memory alloy (SMA) is a smart material with unique properties, such as the ability to regain undeformed shape by unloading or heating. In this research, four different stories (three, five, seven and nine) of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings have been studied and subjected to near-field ground motions. For each building, two different types of reinforcement detailing are considered, including (1) conventional steel reinforcement (RC frame) and (2) steel-SMA reinforcement (SMA RC frame), with SMA bars being used at plastic zones of beams and steel bars in other regions. Nonlinear time history analyses have been performed by "SeismoStruct" finite element software. The results indicate that the application of SMA materials in plastic hinge regions of the beams lead to reduction of the residual displacement and consequently post-earthquake repairs. In general, it can be said that shape memory alloy materials reduce structural damage and retrofit costs.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.761-778
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• 2015

The objective of this paper is to report the result of an experimental program conducted on the strengthening of nonductile RC frames by using external mesh reinforcement and plaster application. The main objective was to test an alternative strengthening technique for reinforced concrete buildings, which could be applied with minimum disturbance to the occupants. Generic specimen is two floors and one bay RC frame in 1/2 scales. The basic aim of tested strengthening techniques is to upgrade strength, ductility and stiffness of the member and/or the structural system. Six specimens, two of which were reference specimens and the remaining four of which had deficient steel detailing and poor concrete quality were strengthened and tested in an experimental program under cyclic loading. The parameters of the experimental study are mesh reinforcement ratio and plaster thickness of the infilled wall. The effects of the mesh reinforced plaster application for strengthening on behavior, strength, stiffness, failure mode and ductility of the specimens were investigated. Premature and unexpected failure mode has been observed at first and second specimens failed due to inadequate plaster thickness. Also third strengthened specimen failed due to inadequate lap splice of the external mesh reinforcement. The last modified specimen behaved satisfactorily with higher ultimate load carrying capacity. Externally reinforced infill wall composites improve seismic behavior by increasing lateral strength, lateral stiffness, and energy dissipation capacity of reinforced concrete buildings, and limit both structural and nonstructural damages caused by earthquakes.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.37-57
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• 2012

The behavior of beam-column joints in moment resisting frame structures is susceptible to damage caused by seismic effects due to poor performance of the joints. A good number of researches were carried out to understand the complex mechanism of RC joints considered in current seismic design codes. The traditional construction detailing of transverse reinforcement has resulted in serious joint failures during earthquakes. This paper introduces a new design philosophy involving the use of additional diagonal bars within the joint particularly suitable for low to medium seismic effects in earthquake zones. In this study, ten full-scale interior beam-column specimens were constructed with various additional reinforcement details and configurations. The results of the experiment showed that adding additional bars is a promising approach in reinforced concrete structures where earthquakes are eminent. In terms of overall cracking observation during the test, the specimens with additional bars (diagonal and straight) compared with the ones without them showed fewer cracks in the column. Furthermore, concrete confinement is certainly an important design measure as recommended by most international codes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.803-815
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• 1997

It is well understood that concentrated forces applied in the plane of a beam or panel (such as a wall or slab) lead to splitting forces developing within a disturbed region forming beyond the bearing zone. In a linearly elastic material the length of the disturbed region is approximately equal to the depth of the member. In concrete structures, however, the length of the disturbed region is a function of the orthotropic properties of the concrete-steel composite. In the detailing of steel reinforcement within the disturbed regions two limit states must be satisfied; strength and serviceability (in this case the serviceability requirement being acceptable crack widths). If the design requires large redistribution of stresses, the member may perform poorly at service and/or overload. In this paper the results of a plane stress finite element investigation of concentrated loads on reinforced concrete panels are presented. Two cases are examined (i) panels loaded concentrically, and (ii) panels loaded eccentrically. The numerical investigation suggests that the bursting force distribution is substantially different from that calculated using elastic design methods currently used in some codes of practice. The optimum solution for a uniformly reinforced bursting region was found to be with the reinforcement distributed from approximately 0.2 times the effective depth of the member ($0.2D_e$) to between $1.2D_e$ and $1.6D_e$. Strut and tie models based on the finite element analyses are proposed herein.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2015

Coupling beams posses proper strength, stiffness and ductility capacities to resist efficiently under seismic loads. The strength, stiffness and ductility capacities for special diagonally reinforced concrete coupling beam with a span-to-depth ratio 2.0 or less is higher than those of coupling beam with conventionally reinforced concrete coupling beam. However, diagonally reinforced detailing creates major construction problem. In this study, design alternatives for diagonally reinforced concrete coupling beams were experimentally investigated. The results show that angle reinforced coupling beam(specimen SA) exhibited a better stable behavior in comparison with non-diagonally coupling beams(specimens SB-series) and sustained corresponding drift ratio, peak-to-peak stiffness and cumulative dissipated energy in comparison to diagonally coupling beam(specimen CA).

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.103-119
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• 2013

The applicability of limit analysis methods in design and assessment of concrete structures generally requires a certain plastic deformation capacity. The latter is primarily provided by the ductility of the reinforcement, being additionally affected by the bond properties between reinforcing steel and concrete since they provoke strain localization in the reinforcement at cracks. The bond strength of reinforcing bars is not only governed by concrete quality, but also by construction details such as bar ribbing, bar spacing or concrete cover thickness. For new concrete structures, a potentially unfavorable impact on bond strength can easily be anticipated through appropriate code rules on construction details. In existing structures, these requirements may not be necessarily satisfied, consequently requiring additional considerations. This two-part paper investigates in a theoretical study the impacts of the most frequently encountered construction details which may not satisfy design code requirements on bond strength, steel strain localization and plastic deformation capacity of cracked structural concrete. The first part introduces basic considerations on bond, strain localization and plastic deformation capacity as well as the fundamentals of the Tension Chord Model underlying the further investigations. It also analyzes the impacts of the hardening behavior of reinforcing steel and concrete quality. The second part discusses the impacts of construction details (bar ribbing, bar spacing, and concrete cover thickness) and of additional structure-specific features such as bar diameter and crack spacing.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.217-230
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• 2023

Methods for designing the post-tensioned anchorage zones at ultimate limit state has been specified in current design codes based on strut-and-tie models (STM). However, it is still not clear how to estimate the serviceability behavior of the anchorage zones. The serviceability is just indirectly taken into account by means of the reasonable reinforcement detailing. To address this issue, this paper is devoted to developing a modified strut-and-tie model (MSTM) to predict the behavior of concentric anchorage zones throughout the loading process. The principle of stationary complementary energy is introduced into STM at each load step to satisfy the compatibility condition and generate the unique MSTM. The structural behavior of anchorage zones can be achieved based on MSTM from loading to failure. Simplified formulas have been proposed to estimate the first cracking load, bearing capacity and maximum crack width with the consideration of the details of reinforcement bursting bars. The proposed model provides a definite method to control the bursting crack width in concentric anchorage zones. Four specimens with different bearing plate ratios have been designed and tested to validate the proposed method.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.202-212
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• 2000

This study investigates the ductility capacity of slender-wide reinforced concrete walls under predominant flexural moment loading. The experimental work for this study aims to provide design guidelines for bar detailing in critical regions under compressive stress in particular in case of slender-wide RC walls. According to the experimental observation the Bernoulli hypothesis of linear strain distribution is no longer valid and the ultimate compressive strain of concrete is significantly reduced, It is postulated that the nonlinear strain distribution causes the concentrated compressive stressed region and hence the premature crushing failure at the toe of walls. The reduced ultimate strain and nonlinear strain distribution need transverse reinforcement for confinement and more realistic models for the strength and displacement estimation of slender-wide RC wall.