• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.741-757
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• 2008

The research field of structural control has evolved from the development of passive devices since 1970s, through the intensive investigation on active systems in 1980s, to the recent studies of semi-active control systems in 1990s. Currently semi-active control is considered most promising in civil engineering applications. However, actual implementation of semi-active devices is still limited due mainly to their system maintenance and associated long-term reliability as a result of power requirement. In this paper, the concept of functionally upgraded passive devices is introduced to streamline some of the state-of-the-art researches and guide the development of new passive devices that can mimic the function of their corresponding semi-active control devices for various applications. The general characteristics of this special group of passive devices are discussed and representative examples are summarized. Their superior performances are illustrated with cyclic and shake table tests of two example devices: mass-variable tuned liquid damper and friction-pendulum bearing with a variable sliding surface curvature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.517-539
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• 2011

This paper presents the seismic responses of a 1:5-scale five-story reinforced concrete building model, which represents a residential apartment building that has a high irregularity of weak story, soft story, and torsion simultaneously at the ground story. The model was subjected to a series of uni- and bi-directional earthquake simulation tests. Analysis of the test results leads to the following conclusions: (1) The model survived the table excitations simulating the design earthquake with the PGA of 0.187 g without any significant damages, though it was not designed against earthquakes; (2) The fundamental mode was the torsion mode. The second and third orthogonal translational modes acted independently while the torsion mode showed a strong correlation with the predominant translational mode; (3) After a significant excursion into inelastic behavior, this correlation disappeared and the maximum torsion and torsion deformation remained almost constant regardless of the intensity of the two orthogonal excitations; And, (4) the lateral resistance and stiffness of the critical columns and wall increased or decreased significantly with the large variation of acting axial forces caused by the high bi-directional overturning moments and rocking phenomena under the bi-directional excitations.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.93-96
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• 2008

The near fault ground motion(NFGM) is characterized by a single long period velocity pulse of large magnitude. NFGM's have been observed in recent strong earthquakes, Turkey Izmit (1999), Japan Kobe(1995), Northridge(1994), etc. These strong earthquakes have caused considerable damage to infrastructures because the epicenter was close to the urban area, called as NFGM. Extensive research for the far fault ground motion(FFGM) have been carried out in strong seismic region, but limited research have been done for NFGM in low or moderate seismic regions because of very few records. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of near-fault ground motions on RC bridge piers without lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. The seismic performance of two RC bridge piers under near-fault ground motions was investigated on the shake table. In addition, Two of four identical RC bridge piers were tested under a quasi-static load, and the others were under a pseudo-dynamic load. The respectively two RC bridge pier is comparatively subjected to Pseudo-dynamic loadings and Quasi-Static loadings. This paper indicated that more gives bigger ultimate strain of longitudinal steels to be fractured at bigger PGA motion.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.65-73
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• 2015

Detailed finite element (FE) analyses of a full-scale four-story steel frame structure, subjected to consecutive 60% and 100% excitations from the JR Takatori records during the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake, are conducted using E-Simulator. The four-story frame was tested at the largest shake-table facility in the world, E-Defense, in 2007. E-Simulator is a parallel FE analysis software package developed to accurately simulate structural behavior up to collapse by using a fine mesh of solid elements. To reduce computational time in consecutive dynamic time history analyses, static analysis with gravity force is introduced to terminate the vibration of the structure during the analysis of 60% excitation. An overall sway mechanism when subjected to 60% excitation and a story mechanism resulting from local buckling of the first-story columns when subjected to 100% excitation are simulated by using E-Simulator. The story drift response to the consecutive 60% and 100% excitations is slightly smaller than that for the single 100% excitation.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.311-324
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• 2012

Previous investigations have demonstrated that strong earthquakes can cause severe damage or collapse to storage tanks. Theoretical studies by other researchers have shown that allowing the tank to uplift generally reduces the base shear and the base moment. This paper provides the necessary experimental confirmation of some of the numerical finding by other researchers. This paper reports on a series of experiments of a model tank containing water using a shake table. A comparison of the seismic behaviour of a fixed base system (tank with anchorage) and a system free to uplift (tank without anchorage) is considered. The six ground motions are scaled to the design spectrum provided by New Zealand Standard 1170.5 (2004) and a range of aspect ratios (height/radius) is considered. Measurements were made of the impulsive acceleration, the horizontal displacement of the top of the tank and uplift of the base plate. A preliminary comparison between the experimental results and the recommendations provided by the liquid storage tank design recommendations of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering is included. The measurement of anchorage forces required to avoid uplift under varying conditions will be discussed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.555-564
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• 2018

Allowing structures to uplift in earthquakes can significantly reduce or even avoid the development of plastic hinges within the structure. The permanent deformations in the structure can thus be minimized. However, uplift of footings can cause additional horizontal movements of a structure. With an increase in movement relative to adjacent structures, the probability of pounding between structures increases. This experimental study reveals that the footing mass can be used to control the vertical displacement of footing and thus reduce the horizontal displacements of an upliftable structure. A four storey model structure with plastic hinges and uplift capability was considered. Shake table tests using ten different earthquake records were conducted. Three different footing masses were considered. It is found that the amplitude of footing uplift can be greatly reduced by increasing the mass of the footing. As a result, allowing structural uplift does not necessary increase the horizontal displacement of the structure. The results show that with increasing footing weight, the interaction between structural and footing response can increase the contribution of the higher modes to the structural response. Consequently, the induced vibrations on secondary structure increase.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.17 no.4 s.77
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• pp.407-417
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• 2005

An experimental and analytical study was performed to apply the friction pendulum system (FPS) to the main control room of a nuclear power plant. A friction pendulum bearing was fabricated, and the dynamic response of the bearing was evaluated. A partial model of a main control room attached to the FPS was tested on the shake table. The model consisted of a cabinet, a $3m\times3m$ access floor, and four friction pendulum bearings. The artificial time history based on the floor response spectrum of the main control room was used as the earthquake input signal in the test. Comparisons between the analytical study and the experimental study were conducted to verify the results and to extend the experimental study to the range of parameters that could not be experimentally studied.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.319-344
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• 2020

Inverse analysis of non-linear reinforced concrete bridge pier using recursive Gaussian filtering for in-situ condition assessment is the main theme of this work. For this purpose, minimum variance unbiased estimation using unscented sigma points is adopted here. The uniqueness of this inverse analysis lies in its approach for strain based updating of engineering demand parameters, where appropriate bound and constrained conditions are introduced to ensure numerical stability and convergence. In this analysis, seismic input is also identified, which is an added advantage for the structures having no dedicated sensors for earthquake measurement. First, the proposed strategy is tested with a simulated example whose hysteretic properties are obtained from the slow-cyclic test of a frame to investigate its efficiency and accuracy. Finally, the experimental test data of a full-scale bridge pier is used to study its in-situ condition in terms of Park & Ang damage index. Overall the study shows the ability of the augmented minimum variance unbiased estimation based recursive time-marching algorithm for non-linear system identification with the aim to estimate the engineering damage parameters that are the fundamental information necessary for any future decision making for retrofitting/rehabilitation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.4
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• pp.421-436
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• 2024

This research addresses experimentally the relationship between the excitation frequency and both hoop and axial wall stresses in a water storage tank. A low-density polyethylene tank with six different aspect ratios (water level to tank radius) was tested using a shake table. A laminar box with sand represents a soil site to simulate Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI). Sine excitations with eight frequencies that cover the first free vibration frequency of the tank-water system were applied. Additionally, Ricker wavelet excitations of two different dominant frequencies were considered. The maximum stresses are compared with those using a nonlinear elastic spring-mass model. The results reveal that the coincidence between the excitation frequency and the free-vibration frequency of the soil-tank-water system increases the sloshing intensity and the rigid-like body motion of the system, amplifying the stress development considerably. The relationship between the excitation frequency and wall stresses is nonlinear and depends simultaneously on both sloshing and uplift. In most cases, the maximum stresses using the nonlinear elastic spring-mass model agree with those from the experiments.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.703-731
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• 2013

In order to verify the applicability of buckling restrained braces (BRB's) and fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets to the seismic strengthening of a low-rise RC building having the irregularities of a soft/weak story and torsion at the ground story, a series of earthquake simulation tests were conducted on a 1:5 scale RC building model before, and after, the strengthening, and these test results are compared and analyzed, to check the effectiveness of the strengthening. Based on the investigations, the following conclusions are made: (1) The BRB's revealed significant slips at the joint with the existing RC beam, up-lifts of columns from RC foundations and displacements due to the flexibility of foundations, and final failure due to the buckling and fracture of base joint angles. The lateral stiffness appeared to be, thereby, as low as one seventh of the intended value, which led to a large yield displacement and, therefore, the BRB's could not dissipate seismic input energy as desired within the range of anticipated displacements. (2) Although the strengthened model did not behave as desired, great enhancement in earthquake resistance was achieved through an approximate 50% increase in the lateral resistance of the wall, due to the axial constraint by the peripheral BRB frames. Finally, (3) whereas in the original model, base torsion was resisted by both the inner core walls and the peripheral frames, the strengthened model resisted most of the base torsion with the peripheral frames, after yielding of the inner core walls, and represented dual values of torsion stiffness, depending on the yielding of core walls.