• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.581-609
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• 2014

Reinforced concrete (RC) structures are likely to experience damage when subjected to earthquakes. Damage index (DI) has been recognised as an advanced tool of quantitatively expressing the extent of damage in such structures. Last 30 years have seen many concepts for DI proposed in order to calibrate the observed levels of damage. The current research briefly reviews all available concepts and investigates their relative merits and limitations with a view to proposing a new concept based on residual deformation. Currently available DIs are classified into two broad categories - non-cumulative DI and cumulative DI. Non-cumulative DIs do not include the effects of cyclic loading, whilst the cumulative concepts produce more rational indication of the level of damage in case of earthquake excitations. Ideally, a DI should vary within a scale of 0 to 1 with 0 representing the state of elastic response, and 1 referring to the state of total collapse. Some of the available DIs do not satisfy these criteria. A new DI based on energy is proposed herein and its performances, both for static and for cyclic loadings, are compared with those obtained using the most widely accepted DI in literature. The proposed DI demonstrates a rational way to predict the extent of damage for a number of case studies. More research is encouraged to address some identified issues.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.423-435
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• 2020

Open ground story (OGS) reinforced concrete (RC) buildings are vulnerable to the complete collapse or severe damages under seismic actions. This study investigates the effectiveness of four different strengthening techniques representing the local and global modifications to improve the seismic performance of a non-ductile RC OGS frame. Steel caging and concrete jacketing methods of column strengthening are considered as the local modification techniques, whereas steel bracing and RC shear wall systems are selected as the global strengthening techniques in this study. Performance-based plastic design (PBPD) approach relying on energy-balance concept has been adopted to determine the required design force demand on the strengthening elements. Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses are carried out on the numerical models of study frames to assess the effectiveness of selected strengthening techniques in improving the seismic performance of OGS frame.. Strengthening techniques based on steel braces and RC shear wall significantly reduced the peak interstory drift response of the OGS frame. However, the peak floor acceleration of these strengthened frames is amplified by more than 2.5 times as compared to that of unstrengthened frame. Steel caging technique of column strengthening resulted in a reasonable reduction in the peak interstory drift response without substantial amplification in peak floor acceleration of the OSG frame.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1055-1075
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• 2015

In order to investigate the accuracy and applicability of steel equivalent constitutive model, the calculated results were compared with typical tests of steel frames under static and dynamic loading patterns firstly. Secondly, four widely used models for time history analysis of steel frames were compared to discuss the applicability and efficiency of different methods, including shell element model, multi-scale model, equivalent constitutive model (ECM) and traditional beam element model (especially bilinear model). Four-story steel frame models of above-mentioned finite element methods were established. The structural deformation, failure modes and the computational efficiency of different models were compared. Finally, the equivalent constitutive model was applied in seismic incremental dynamic analysis of a ten-floor steel frame and compared with the cyclic hardening model without considering damage and degradation. Meanwhile, the effects of damage and degradation on the seismic performance of steel frame were discussed in depth. The analysis results showed that: damages would lead to larger deformations. Therefore, when the calculated results of steel structures subjected to rare earthquake without considering damage were close to the collapse limit, the actual story drift of structure might already exceed the limit, leading to a certain security risk. ECM could simulate the damage and degradation behaviors of steel structures more accurately, and improve the calculation accuracy of traditional beam element model with acceptable computational efficiency.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.6 s.261
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• pp.671-678
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• 2007

Front-side members of automobile, such as the hat shaped section members, are structures with the greatest energy absorbing capability in a front-end collision of vehicle. This paper was performed to analyze energy absorption characteristics of the hat shaped section members, which are basic shape of side member. The hat shaped section members consisted of the spot welded side member which was utilized to an actual vehicle and CFRP side member for lightweight of vehicle structural member. The members were tested under static axial loading by universal testing machine. Currently, stacking condition related to the collapse characteristics of composite materials is being considered as an issue fer the structural efficiency and safety of automobiles, aerospace vehicles, trains, ships even elevators during collision. So, energy absorption characteristics were analyzed according to stacking condition and shape of section and compared the results of spot welded side member with those of CFRP side member.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2020

In different high seismic regions around the world, many non-ductile existing reinforced concrete frame buildings, built without adequate seismic detailing requirements, have been damaged or collapsed after past earthquakes. The assessment and the retrofit of these non-ductile concrete structures is crucial theme of research for all the scientific community of engineers. In particular, a careful assessment of the existing building is fundamental for understanding the failure mechanisms that govern the collapse of the structure or the achievement of the recommended limit states. Based on the seismic assessment, the best retrofit strategy can be designed and applied to the structure. A school building located in Avellino province (Italy) is the case study. The analysis of seismic vulnerability carried out on the mentioned building has highlighted deficiencies in both static and seismic load conditions. The retrofit of the building has been designed based on different retrofit options in order to show the real retrofit design developed from the engineers to achieve the seismic safety of the building. The retrofit costs associated to structural operations are calculated for each case and have been summed up to the costs of the in situ tests. The paper shows a real retrofit design case study in which the best solution is chosen based on the results in terms of structural performance and cost among the different retrofit options.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.271-278
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• 2020

Quantifying the amount of damage of structures under earthquakes is an interesting issue that researchers have attended on and have presented some damage indices. Whereas a lot of damage indices have been introduced based on nonlinear dynamic analysis, computational effort, the calculus complicacy and time-consuming of this analysis are the main drawbacks to widespread use of these indices. The objective of this study is to quantify the damage of Shear Wall Reinforced Concrete Frames (SWRCFs) based on pushover analysis as a procedure that can reflect the behavior of structures from elastic to collapse. For this purpose, firstly, several SWRCFs are designed and the capacity spectrum of each one is achieved via pushover analysis. After that, the static damage indices of the designed frames are obtained. Then, nonlinear dynamic analyses are performed on these frames and the Park and Ang damage index as the basis damage criterion is achieved. Afterward, some relations are presented to predict the dynamic damage of these frames via pushover analysis. Eventually, to confirm the validity of the proposed relations, the values of Park and Ang damage index of three new SWRCFs are acquired once utilizing nonlinear dynamic analysis and again applying the introduced relations. Outcomes prove the validity of some presented damage indices.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.273-287
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• 2019

Elastoplastic analysis of an annular disc, being fully constrained on its outer rim and interacting with a purely elastic inclusion perfectly bonded with its inner rim, is conducted to study its plastic deformation and residual stress under thermal cycles. The system is termed the composite disc. Quasi-static plane-strain deformation is assumed, and the von Mises yield criterion with or without the Ludwik hardening rule is adopted in our finite element calculations. Effects of multiple material properties simultaneously being temperature dependent on the plastic behavior of the composite disc are considered. Residual stress is analyzed from a complete loading and unloading cycle. Results are discussed for various inclusion radii. It is found that when temperature dependent material properties are considered, the maximum residual stress may be greater than the maximum stress inside the disc at the temperature-loaded state due to lower temperature having larger yield stress. Temperature independent material properties overestimate stresses inside materials, as well as the elastic irreversible temperature and plastic collapse temperature.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.743-754
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• 2020

This study provides an insight of the nonlinear behavior of the Offshore Wind Turbine (OWT) structure using the distributed plasticity approach. The fiber section beam-column element is applied to construct the finite element model. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified using linear analysis via the comparison of the dynamic characteristics. For collapse risk assessment of OWT, the nonlinear effects considering the earthquake Incident Angle (IA) have been evaluated first. Then, the Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) has been executed using a set of 20 near-fault records. Lastly, fragility curves are developed to evaluate the vulnerability of structures for different limit states. Attained results justify the accuracy of the proposed approach for the structural response against the ground motions and other environmental loads. It indicates that effects of static wind and wave loads along with the earthquake loads should be considered during the risk assessment of the OWT structure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.139-149
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• 2022

To simplify the design and reduce the construction cost of traditional multi-girder structural systems, twin I-girder structures are widely used in many countries in recent years. Due to the concern on post-fracture redundancy, however, twin girder bridges are currently classified as fracture critical structures in AASHTO specifications for highway bridges. To investigate the after-fracture behavior of such structures, a composite steel and concrete twin girder specimen was built and an artificial fracture through the web and the bottom flange was created on one main girder. The static loading test was performed to investigate its mechanical performance after a severe fracture occurred on the main girder. Applied load and vertical displacement curves, and the applied load versus strain relationships at key sections were measured. To investigate the load distribution and transfer capacities between two steel girders, the normal strain development on crossbeams was also measured during the loading test. In addition, both shear and normal strains of studs were also measured in the loading test to explore the behavior of shear connectors in such bridges. The functions and structural performance of structural members and possible load transfer paths after main girder fractures in such bridges were also discussed. The test results indicate in this study that a typical twin I-girder can resist a general fracture on one of its two main girders. The presented results can provide references for post-fracture performance and optimization for the design of twin I-girder bridges and similar structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.5
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• pp.491-505
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• 2024

This study evaluates the seismic performance of a premodern six story reinforced concrete building typology designed during the communism period of Albania and build throughout the country. During the November 26, 2019 Earthquake in Albania, the most affected reinforced concrete buildings were among the old templates, lacking shear walls and inadequate reinforcement details which suffer from concrete aging. The mathematical model of the selected building is done in the environments of ZeusNL software, developed especially for earthquake engineering applications. The capacity curve of the structure is gained using the conventional static nonlinear analysis. On the other hand, the demand estimation is utilized using one of the recent methods known as Incremental Dynamic Analysis with a set of 18 ground motion records. The limit states in both curves are defined based on the modern guidelines. For the pushover, immediate occupancy (IO), life safety (LS) and collapse prevention (CP) are plotted in the same graph with capacity curve. Furthermore, on each IDA derived, the IO, CP and global instability (GI) are determined. Moreover, the IDA fractiles are generated as suggested by the literature, 16%, 50% (median) and 84%. In addition, the comparative assessment of the IDA median with capacity curve shows good correlation points. Lastly, this study shows the approach of determination of LS in IDA fractiles for further vulnerability assessment based on the local seismic hazard map with 95 and 475 return period.