• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.383-401
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• 2014

Over the past years, hybrid building systems, consisting of reinforced concrete frames in bottom and steel frames in top are used as a cost-effective alternative to traditional structural steel or reinforced concrete constructions. Dynamic analysis of hybrid structures is usually a complex procedure due to various dynamic characteristics of each part, i.e. stiffness, mass and especially damping. In hybrid structures, one or more transitional stories with composite sections are used for better transition of lateral and gravity forces. The effect of transitional storey has been considered in no one of the studies in the field of hybrid structures damping. In this study, a method has been proposed to determining the equivalent modal damping ratios for hybrid steel-concrete buildings with transitional storey. In the proposed method, hybrid buildings are considered to have three structural systems, reinforced concrete, composite steel and concrete (transitional storey) and steel system. In this method, hybrid buildings are substituted appropriately with 3-DOF system.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.287-299
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• 2001

Columns in multi-storey frames are presently categorised as either braced or unbraced, usually by means of the stability index criterion, for estimating their effective length ratios by design aids such as 'alignment charts'. This procedure, however, ignores the transition in buckling behaviour between the braced condition and the unbraced one. Hence, this results in either an overestimation or an underestimation of effective length estimates of columns in frames that are in fact 'partially braced'. It is shown in this paper that the transitional behaviour is gradual, and can be approximately modelled by means of a 'fuzzy logic' based technique. The proposed technique is simple and intuitively agreeable. It fills the existing gap between the braced and unbraced conditions in present codal provisions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.321-336
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• 2022

Model uncertainty is a key factor that could influence the accuracy and reliability of numerical model-based analysis. It is necessary to acquire an appropriate updating approach which could search and determine the realistic model parameter values from measurements. In this paper, the Bayesian model updating theory combined with the transitional Markov chain Monte Carlo (TMCMC) method and K-means cluster analysis is utilized in the updating of the structural model parameters. Kriging and polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) are employed to generate surrogate models to reduce the computational burden in TMCMC. The selected updating approaches are applied to three structural examples with different complexity, including a two-storey frame, a ten-storey frame, and the national stadium model. These models stand for the low-dimensional linear model, the high-dimensional linear model, and the nonlinear model, respectively. The performances of updating in these three models are assessed in terms of the prediction uncertainty, numerical efforts, and prior information. This study also investigates the updating scenarios using the analytical approach and surrogate models. The uncertainty quantification in the Bayesian approach is further discussed to verify the validity and accuracy of the surrogate models. Finally, the advantages and limitations of the surrogate model-based updating approaches are discussed for different structural complexity. The possibility of utilizing the boosting algorithm as an ensemble learning method for improving the surrogate models is also presented.