• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.391-413
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• 2015

Damage of torsionally coupled buildings situated on soil sites has been reported in literature, however no site-specific studies are available for torsionally coupled buildings having site characteristics as a parameter. Effect of torsion is being accounted in seismic codes by the provision of design eccentricity where the dynamic to static eccentricity ratio is a parameter. In this paper, a methodology to determine dynamic to static eccentricity ratio of torsionally coupled buildings has been demonstrated for Delhi region for two torsionally coupled buildings on three soil sites. The variations of average and standard deviations of frame shears for stiff and flexible edges are studied for four eccentricity ratios for the two buildings for the three sites. From the limited studies made, it is observed that the dynamic to static eccentricity ratios observed for site-specific earthquakes are different from Indian seismic code specified value, hence a proposal is made to include a comment in Indian seismic code. Methodology proposed in this paper can be adopted for any region, for the estimation of dynamic to static eccentricity ratio for site specific earthquake.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.387-410
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• 2013

This paper deals with the damage assessment for isolators of base-isolated building systems considering the torsion-coupling (TC) effect by establishing damage indices. The damage indices can indicate the reduction in lateral stiffness of the isolator story as explicit formulas in terms of modal parameters. In addition, the damage location, expressed in terms of the estimated damage index and eccentricities before and after damage, is also presented. Numerical analysis shows that the proposed algorithms are applicable for general base-isolated multi-story TC buildings. A procedure from the analysis of seismic response to the implementation of damage indices is demonstrated by using a numerical case. A system identification technique is employed to extract modal parameters from seismic responses of a building. Results show that the proposed indices are capable of detecting the occurrence of damage and preliminarily estimating the location of damaged isolator.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.71-87
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• 2014

Interaction between closely-spaced buildings subject to earthquake induced strong ground motions, termed in the literature as "seismic pounding", occurs commonly during major seismic events in contemporary congested urban environments. Seismic pounding is not taken into account by current codes of practice and is rarely considered in practice at the design stage of new buildings constructed "in contact" with existing ones. Thus far, limited research work has been devoted to quantify the influence of slab-to-slab pounding on the inelastic seismic demands at critical locations of structural members in adjacent structures that are not aligned in series. In this respect, this paper considers a typical case study of a "new" reinforced concrete (R/C) EC8-compliant, torsionally sensitive, 7-story corner building constructed within a block, in bi-lateral contact with two existing R/C 5-story structures with same height floors. A non-linear local plasticity numerical model is developed and a series of non-linear time-history analyses is undertaken considering the corner building "in isolation" from the existing ones (no-pounding case), and in combination with the existing ones (pounding case). Numerical results are reported in terms of averages of ratios of peak inelastic rotation demands at all structural elements (beams, columns, shear walls) at each storey. It is shown that seismic pounding reduces on average the inelastic demands of the structural members at the lower floors of the 7-story building. However, the discrepancy in structural response of the entire block due to torsion-induced, bi-directionally seismic pounding is substantial as a result of the complex nonlinear dynamics of the coupled building block system.