• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.170-181
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• 2018

Because of the design and construction requirements, the nuclear structures need to maintain the structural integrity under both design state and extreme earthquake shaking. The base-isolation technology can significantly reduce the damages of structures under extreme earthquake events, and effectively protect the safeties of structures and internal equipment. This study proposes a base-isolation design for the AP1000 nuclear shield building on considering the performance requirements of the seismic isolation systems and devices of shield building. The seismic responses of isolated and nonisolated shield buildings subjected to design basis earthquake (DBE) shaking and beyond-design basis earthquake (BDBE) shaking are analyzed, and three different strategies for controlling the displacements subjected to BDBE shaking are performed. By comparing with nonisolated shield buildings, the floor acceleration spectra of isolated shield buildings, relative displacement, and base shear force are significantly reduced in high-frequency region. The results demonstrate that the base-isolation technology is an effective approach to maintain the structural integrity which subjected to both DBE and BDBE shaking. A displacement control design for isolation layers subjected to BDBE shaking, which adopts fluid dampers for controlling the horizontal displacement of isolation layer is developed. The effectiveness of this simple method is verified through numerical analysis.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.645-667
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• 2016

The 750 m long "De Bosset" bridge in the Cephalonia Island of Western Greece, being the area with the highest seismicity in Europe, was constructed in 1830 by successive stone arches and stiff block-type piers. The bridge suffered extensive damages during past earthquakes, such as the strong M7.2 earthquake of 1953, followed by poorly-designed reconstruction schemes with reinforced concrete. In 2005, a multidisciplinary project for the seismic assessment and restoration of the "De Bosset" bridge was undertaken under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture. The proposed retrofitting scheme combining soil improvement, structural strengthening and reconstruction of the deteriorated masonry sections was recently applied on site. Design of the rehabilitation measures and assessment of the pre- and post-interventions seismic response of the bridge were based on detailed in-situ and laboratory tests, providing foundation soil and structural material properties. In-situ inspection of the rehabilitated bridge following the strong M6.1 and M6.0 Cephalonia earthquakes of January 26th and February 3rd 2014, respectively, revealed no damages or visible defects. The efficiency of the bridge retrofitting is also proved by a preliminary performance analysis of the bridge under the recorded ground motion induced by the above earthquakes.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.179-189
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• 2008

The object of this study is to develope a program with proposed numerical techniques for an optimal seismic control of structures using active tendon systems. Ricatti closed-loop algorithm has been applied to control the active tendon systems with time-delay problem. The optimal control is formulated as an optimization problem which is finding optimal weighting matrices by minimizing the quadratic performance index by SUMT. In order to find the optimal location of active tendons in structures, controllability index has been introduced. From numerical examples, the current optimal control technique with optimal location of tendons was suitable to control the seismic response of structures.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.429-436
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• 2014

This paper presents the seismic performance of a geometrically unsymmetrical reinforced concrete building considering torsional effect and material nonlinearity of concrete and steel. The reinforced concrete building is a structure for seismic performance evaluation in the SMART-2013 international benchmark program. Nonlinear constitutive models for concrete and steel were constructed, and their numerical performance was demonstrated by various local tests. Modal analysis showed that the first three natural frequencies and mode shapes were close to the experimental results from the SMART-2013 program. In the time history analysis for low-intensity seismic loadings, displacement and acceleration responses at sampling points were similar to the experimental results. In the end, nonlinear time history analysis was conducted for Northridge earthquake to predict the behavior of the reinforced concrete structure under high-intensity seismic loadings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.159-170
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• 2018

This paper aims to develop response modification factors for stiffness degrading structures by incorporating soil-structure interaction effects. A comprehensive parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of key SSI parameters, natural period of vibration, ductility demand and hysteretic behavior on the response modification factor of soil-structure systems. The nonlinear dynamic response of 6300 soil-structure systems are studied under two ensembles of accelograms including 20 recorded and 7 synthetic ground motions. It is concluded that neglecting the stiffness degradation of structures can results in up to 22% underestimation of inelastic strength demands in soil-structure systems, leading to an unexpected high level of ductility demand in the structures located on soft soil. Nonlinear regression analyses are then performed to derive a simplified expression for estimating ductility-dependent response modification factors for stiffness degrading soil-structure systems. The adequacy of the proposed expression is investigated through sensitivity analyses on nonlinear soil-structure systems under seven synthetic spectrum compatible earthquake ground motions. A good agreement is observed between the results of the predicted and the target ductility demands, demonstrating the adequacy of the expression proposed in this study to estimate the inelastic demands of SSI systems with stiffness degrading structures. It is observed that the maximum differences between the target and average target ductility demands was 15%, which is considered acceptable for practical design purposes.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.29-38
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• 2022

In this study, the shaking table tests were carried out on six types of non-structural elements installed on a full-scale two-story steel structure. The shaking table tests were performed for non-structural elements with and without seismic isolators. In this study, the seismic performance of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) specimens was tested and investigated. Non-seismic details were composed of conventional channel section steel beams, and the seismic isolators were composed of high damping rubber bearing (HDRB) and wire isolator. The input acceleration time histories were artificially generated to satisfy the requirements proposed by the ICC-ES AC156 code. Based on the test results, the damage and dynamic characteristics of the UPS with the seismic isolator were investigated in terms of the natural frequency, damping ratio, acceleration time history responses, dynamic amplification factors, and relative displacements. The results from the shaking table showed that the dynamic characteristics of the UPS including the acceleration response were significantly improved when using the seismic isolator.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.541-561
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• 2011

The Finite Element Method (FEM) was employed to demonstrate that accurate simulations of seismically repaired and retrofitted reinforced concrete shear walls can be achieved provided a good analysis program with comprehensive models for material and structural behaviour is used. Furthermore, the analysis tool should have the capability to retain residual damage experienced by the original structure and carry it forward in the repaired and retrofitted structure. The focus herein is to provide quick, simple, but reliable modelling procedures for repair and retrofitting strategies such as concrete replacement, addition of diagonal reinforcing bars, bolting of external steel plates, and bonding of external steel plates and fibre reinforced polymer sheets, thus illustrating versatility in the modelling. Slender, squat, and slender-squat shear walls were investigated. The modelling utilized simple rectangular membrane elements for the concrete, truss bar elements for the steel and FRP retrofitting materials, and bond-link elements for the bonding interface between steel or FRP to concrete. The analyses satisfactorily simulated seismic behaviour, including lateral load capacity, displacement capacity, energy dissipation, hysteretic response, and failure mode.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.375-388
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• 2014

The effectiveness of using the advanced seismic protection technology based on shape memory alloy (SMA) dampers to preserve a historical minaret is investigated. The proposed studied case, the minaret of Mansourah, is a seven century old minaret located in Tlemcen, Algeria. Its original height was of 47m, while nowadays, the monument is half destructed and its current height reaches the 40m. The proposed seismic retrofit is based on the technique that utilizes SMA wires as dampers for the upper flexible part of the minaret. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is numerically evaluated via non-linear finite element analysis using the structural software ANSYS. The effectiveness of the proposed device in mitigating the seismic hazard is demonstrated by the effective reduction in its dynamic response.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.203-214
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• 2018

Deflection control in tall buildings is a challenging issue. Connecting of the towers is an interesting idea for architects as well as structural engineers. In this paper, two reinforced concrete core-wall towers are connected by a truss bridge with buckling restrained braces. The buildings are 40 and 60-story. The effect of the location of the bridge is investigated. Response spectrum analysis of the linear models is used to obtain the design demands and the systems are designed according to the reliable codes. Then, nonlinear time history analysis at maximum considered earthquake is performed to assess the seismic responses of the systems subjected to far-field and near-field record sets. Fiber elements are used for the reinforced concrete walls. On average, the inter-story drift ratio demand will be minimized when the bridge is approximately located at a height equal to 0.825 times the total height of the building. Besides, because of whipping effects, maximum roof acceleration demand is approximately two times the peak ground acceleration. Plasticity extends near the base and also in major areas of the walls subjected to the seismic loads.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.577-590
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• 2019

The seismic response of structures to strong ground motions is a complex problem that has been studied for decades. However, most of current seismic regulations do not assess the potential level of damage that a structure may undergo during a strong earthquake. This will happen in spite that the design objectives for any structural system are formulated in terms of acceptable levels of damage. In this article, we analyze the expected damage in single-degree-of-freedom systems subjected to long-duration ground motions generated in soft soil sites, such as those located in the lakebed of Mexico City. An energy-based methodology is formulated, under the consideration of input energy as the basis for the evaluation process, to estimate expected damage. The results of the proposed methodology are validated with damage curves established directly with nonlinear dynamic analyses.