• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.269-282
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• 2023

This study investigates a rocking seismic isolation (RSI) system as a seismic protection measure against narrow-band ground-motions generated by earthquakes. Structures supported over RSIs are considered capable of reducing the lateral demands and damage of the main structural system through lifting and rocking. This lifting and rocking during earthquake activity is provided by free-standing columns. A single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system supported on a RSI system is subjected to narrow-band seismic motions and its response is compared to an analog system without RSI. The comparison is then extended to reinforced concrete linear frames with and without RSI; three-bay frames with 11 and 17 storeys are considered. It is found that the RSI systems significantly reduce acceleration and displacement demands in the main structural frames, more noticeably if the first structural mode dominates the response and for ratios of the predominant frequency of the ground motion to the predominant frequency of the main frame near one. It is also found that the RSI system is more effective in reducing lateral accelerations and displacements of the main structure when the aspect ratio, b/h, and size, R, of the free-standing columns decrease, although the rocking stability of the RSI system is also reduced.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.133-148
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• 2021

The paper presents a simplified force-based seismic design procedure for the preliminary design of steel haunch retrofitting for the seismic upgrade of deficient RC frames. The procedure involved constructing a site-specific seismic design spectrum for the site, which is transformed into seismic base shear coefficient demand, using an applicable response modification factor, that defines base shear force for seismic analysis of the structure. Recent experimental campaign; involving shake table testing of ten (10), and quasi-static cyclic testing of two (02), 1:3 reduced scale RC frame models, carried out for the seismic performance assessment of both deficient and retrofitted structures has provided the basis to calculate retrofit-specific response modification factor Rretrofitted. The haunch retrofitting technique enhanced the structural stiffness, strength, and ductility, hence, increased the structural response modification factor, which is mainly dependent on the applied retrofit scheme. An additional retrofit effectiveness factor (ΩR) is proposed for the deficient structure's response modification factor Rdeficient, representing the retrofit effectiveness (ΩR=Rretrofitted /Rdeficient), to calculate components' moment and shear demands for the retrofitted structure. The experimental campaign revealed that regardless of the deficient structures' characteristics, the ΩR factor remains fairly the unchanged, which is encouraging to generalize the design procedure. Haunch configuration is finalized that avoid brittle hinging of beam-column joints and ensure ductile beam yielding. Example case study for the seismic retrofit designs of RC frames are presented, which were validated through equivalent lateral load analysis using elastic model and response history analysis of finite-element based inelastic model, showing reasonable performance of the proposed design procedure. The proposed design has the advantage to provide a seismic zone-specific design solution, and also, to suggest if any additional measure is required to enhance the strength/deformability of beams and columns.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2002

In the case of earthquake, it is necessary to install earthquake instruments and to measure the ground motions for stable gas supply and restoration in case of supply suspension. Because each point in the site of the gas facilities has different characteristics of ground motion, it is recommended to measure at the point where the ground motion is representative. In this paper, ground motion analysis and noise pattern analysis are carried out to select suitable point for the installation of earthquake instruments and to set of dynamic range of sensors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 2023

This article examines the seismic vulnerability of soil nail wall structures. Detailed information regarding finite element modeling has been provided. The fragility function evaluates the relationship between ground motion intensities and the probability of surpassing a specific level of damage. The use of incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) has been applied to the soil nail wall against low to severe ground motions. In the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the soil nail wall, a set of twenty seismic ground motions with varying PGA ranges are used. The numerical results demonstrate that the soil-nailed wall reaction is extremely sensitive to earthquake ground vibrations under different intensity measures (IM). In addition, the analytical fragility curve is provided for various intensity values.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.625-639
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• 2019

The concept of the combined seismic and energy retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings was examined in this paper through a number of case studies conducted on model buildings (simulating buildings of the '60s-'80s in southern Europe) constructed according to outdated design standards. Specifically, seismic and thermal analyses have been conducted prior to and after the application of selected retrofitting schemes, in order to quantify the positive effect that retrofitting could provide to RC buildings both in terms of their structural and energy performance. Advanced materials, namely the textile reinforced mortars (TRM), were used for providing seismic retrofitting by means of jacketing of masonry infills in RC frames. Moreover, following the application of the TRM jackets, thermal insulation materials were simultaneously provided to the RC building envelope, exploiting the fresh mortar used to bind the TRM jackets. In addition to the externally applied insulation material, all the fenestration elements (windows and doors) were replaced with new high energy efficiency ones. Afterwards, an economic measure, namely the expected annual loss (EAL) was used to evaluate the efficiency of each retrofitting method, but also to assess whether the combined seismic and energy retrofitting is economically feasible. From the results of this preliminary study, it was concluded that the selected seismic retrofitting technique can indeed enhance significantly the structural behaviour of an existing RC building and lower its EAL related to earthquake risks. Finally, it was found that the combined seismic and energy upgrading is economically more efficient than a sole energy or seismic retrofitting scenario for seismic areas of south Europe.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.609-623
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• 2020

This paper presents a displacement-based seismic design procedure for new structures with fluid viscous dampers and/or for existing structures, where these devices are required as a retrofit measure and damage control. To consider the non-proportional damping produced by these devices in a conventional modal spectral analysis, the effect of the fluid viscous dampers is approximated as the sum of a proportional damping matrix and a complementary matrix which is representative of non-proportional damping matrix. To illustrate the application of this procedure and evaluate the performance of structures designed with the procedure proposed, five regular plane frames: 8, 12, 17, 20 and 25-storey, and an 8-storey building are designed. The seismic demands used for design and validation were the records obtained at the SCT site during the 1985 Michoacan earthquake, and that of the 2017 Morelos - Puebla earthquake obtained at the Culhuacan site, both stations located on soft soil sites. To validate the procedure proposed, the performances and damage distributions used as design targets were compared with the corresponding results from the nonlinear step-by-step analyses of the designed structures subjected to the same seismic demands.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.699-706
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• 2014

The probabilistic seismic performance of a standard Korean nuclear power plant (NPP) with an idealized isolation is investigated in the present work. A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) of the Wolsong site on the Korean peninsula is performed by considering peak ground acceleration (PGA) as an earthquake intensity measure. A procedure is reported on the categorization and selection of two sets of ground motions of the Tohoku earthquake, i.e. long-period and common as Set A and Set B respectively, for the nonlinear time history response analysis of the base-isolated NPP. Limit state values as multiples of the displacement responses of the NPP base isolation are considered for the fragility estimation. The seismic risk of the NPP is further assessed by incorporation of the rate of frequency exceedance and conditional failure probability curves. Furthermore, this framework attempts to show the unacceptable performance of the isolated NPP in terms of the probabilistic distribution and annual probability of limit states. The comparative results for long and common ground motions are discussed to contribute to the future safety of nuclear facilities against drastic events like Tohoku.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1091-1114
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• 2015

The adequacy of a number of advanced earthquake Intensity Measures (IMs) to predict the structural damage of earthquake resistant 3D R/C buildings is investigated in the present paper. To achieve this purpose three symmetric in plan and three asymmetric 5-storey R/C buildings are analyzed by nonlinear time history analysis using 74 bidirectional earthquake records. The two horizontal accelerograms of each ground motion are applied along the structural axes of the buildings and the structural damage is expressed in terms of the maximum and average interstorey drift as well as the overall structural damage index. For each individual pair of accelerograms the values of the aforementioned seismic damage measures are determined. Then, they are correlated with several strong motion scalar IMs that take into account both earthquake and structural characteristics. The research identified certain IMs which exhibit strong correlation with the seismic damage measures of the studied buildings. However, the degree of correlation between IMs and the seismic damage depends on the damage measure adopted. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the widely used spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the structure is a relatively good IM for medium rise R/C buildings that possess small structural eccentricity.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2015

Minimizing construction cost and reducing seismic damage are two conflicting objectives in the design of any new structure. In the present work, we try to develop a framework in order to solve the optimum performance-based design problem considering the construction cost and the seismic damage of steel moment-frame structures. The Park-Ang damage index is selected as the seismic damage measure because it is one of the most realistic measures of structural damage. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is employed as the optimization algorithm to search the Pareto optimal solutions. To improve the time efficiency of the proposed framework, three simplifying strategies are adopted: first, simplified nonlinear modeling investigating minimum level of structural modeling sophistication; second, fitness approximation decreasing the number of fitness function evaluations; third, wavelet decomposition of earthquake record decreasing the number of acceleration points involved in time-history loading. The constraints of the optimization problem are considered in accordance with Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) recommended seismic design specifications. The results from numerical application of the proposed framework demonstrate the efficiency of the framework in solving the present multi-objective optimization problem.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2019

The paper presents experimental and numerical studies carried out on low-rise RC frames, typically found in developing countries. Shake table tests were conducted on 1:3 reduced scaled two-story RC frames that included a code conforming SMRF model and another non-compliant model. The later was similar to the code conforming model, except, it was prepared in concrete having strength 33% lower than the design specified, which is commonly found in the region. The models were tested on shake table, through multiple excitations, using acceleration time history of 1994 Northridge earthquake, which was linearly scaled for multi-levels excitations in order to study the structures' damage mechanism and measure the structural response. A representative numerical model was prepared in finite element based program SeismoStruct, simulating the observed local damage mechanisms (bar-slip and joint shear hinging), for seismic analysis of RC frames having weaker beam-column joints. A suite of spectrum compatible acceleration records was obtained from PEER for incremental dynamic analysis of considered RC frames. The seismic performance of considered RC frames was quantified in terms of seismic response parameters (seismic response modification, overstrength and displacement amplification factors), for critical comparison.