Search

This paper addresses the free transverse vibrations of thin simply supported nonhomogeneous isotropic rectangular plates of bilinearly varying thickness with elastically restrained edges against rotation. The Gram-Schmidt process has been used to generate two-dimensional boundary characteristic orthogonal polynomials, which have been used in the Rayleigh-Ritz method to study the problem. The lowest three frequencies have been computed for various values of nonhomogeneous parameters, thickness parameters, aspect ratio and flexibility parameters. A comparison of the results with those available in the literature has been made. Three-dimensional mode shapes for the specified plate have been presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The buildings' capacity to maintain minimum structural safety levels during natural disasters, such as earthquakes, is recognisably one of the aspects that most influence urban resilience. Moreover, the public investment in risk mitigation strategies is fundamental, not only to promote social and urban and resilience, but also to limit consequent material, human and environmental losses. Despite the growing awareness of this issue, there is still a vast number of traditional masonry buildings spread throughout many European old city centres that lacks of adequate seismic resistance, requiring therefore urgent retrofitting interventions in order to both reduce their seismic vulnerability and to cope with the increased seismic requirements of recent code standards. Thus, this paper aims at contributing to mitigate the social and economic impacts of earthquake damage scenarios through the development of vulnerability-based comparative analysis of some of the most popular retrofitting techniques applied after the 1998 Azores earthquake. The influence of each technique individually and globally studied resorting to a seismic vulnerability index methodology integrated into a GIS tool and damage and loss scenarios are constructed and critically discussed. Finally, the economic balance resulting from the implementation of that techniques are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prediction of peak ground acceleration is an essential element in engineering seismology and it has received great attention in last few decades. In this paper, a comprehensive database of the strong-motion records of the 2008 great Wenchuan Ms 8.0 earthquake is analyzed to investigate the seismic attenuation relationship and the directivity effects. In contrast to most existing seismic attenuation models, the proposed model considers explicitly the directivity effect which has primary influence on the magnitude of ground motion. Bayesian model updating is used to obtain the model parameters and the associated uncertainty. Comparative study is performed with the well-known Boore-Joyner-Fumal empirical formula. Results show that consideration of the directivity effect is vital in modeling the seismic attenuation relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of higher modes and torsion have a significant impact on the seismic responses of asymmetric-plan tall buildings. A consecutive modal pushover (CMP) procedure is one of the pushover methods that have been developed to consider these effects. The aim of this paper is to modify the (CMP) analysis procedure to estimate the seismic demands of one-way asymmetric-plan tall buildings with dual systems. An analysis of 10-, 15- and 20-story asymmetric-plan buildings is carried out, and the results from the modified consecutive modal pushover (MCMP) procedure are compared with those obtained from the modal pushover analysis (MPA) procedure and the nonlinear time history analysis (NLTHA). The MCMP estimates of the seismic demands of one-way asymmetric-plan buildings demonstrate a reasonable accuracy, compared to the results obtained from the NLTHA. Furthermore, the accuracy of the MCMP procedure in the prediction of plastic hinge rotations is better than the MPA procedure. The new pushover procedure is also more accurate than the FEMA load distribution and the MPA procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unreinforced Masonry (URM) is the most common partitioning material in framed buildings in India and many other countries. Although it is well-known that under lateral loading the behavior and modes of failure of the frame buildings change significantly due to infill-frame interaction, the general design practice is to treat infills as nonstructural elements and their stiffness, strength and interaction with the frame is often ignored, primarily because of difficulties in simulation and lack of modeling guidelines in design codes. The Indian Standard, like many other national codes, does not provide explicit insight into the anticipated performance and associated vulnerability of infilled frames. This paper presents an analytical study on the seismic performance and fragility analysis of Indian code-designed RC frame buildings with and without URM infills. Infills are modeled as diagonal struts as per ASCE 41 guidelines and various modes of failure are considered. HAZUS methodology along with nonlinear static analysis is used to compare the seismic vulnerability of bare and infilled frames. The comparative study suggests that URM infills result in a significant increase in the seismic vulnerability of RC frames and their effect needs to be properly incorporated in design codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonlinear static analysis procedures are key tools in evaluating the performance of existing buildings and verifying the design of seismic retrofits in seismically active regions. In this procedure, nonlinear force-displacement or moment-curvature ( M-φ) behavior needs to be defined. In the ATC-40 document, values of M-φ have been proposed to model elements in a nonlinear procedure. However, these values need to be investigated to determine if they are representative of actual values. In this paper, an attempt has been made to numerically derive M-φ curves to simulate actual performance. Then, these curves are compared with the ATC-40 recommended curves with respect to various parameters. The study indicated that ATC-40 suggested values are conservative in nature in most situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reticulated shell structures (RSSs) are characterized as cyclically periodic structures. Mistuning of RSSs will induce structural mode localization. Mode localization has the following two features: some modal vectors of the structure change remarkably when the values of its physical parameters (mass or stiffness) have a slight change; and the vibration of some modes is mainly restricted in some local areas of the structure. In this paper, two quantitative assessment indexes are introduced that correspond to these two features. The first feature is studied through a numerical example of a RSS, and its induced causes are analyzed by using the perturbation theory. The analysis showed that internally, mode localization is closely related to structural frequencies and externally, slight changes of the physical parameters of the structure cause instability to the RSS. A scaled model experiment to examine mode localization was carried out on a Kiewit single-layer spherical RSS, and both features of mode localization are studied. Eight tests that measured the changes of the physical parameters were carried out in the experiment. Since many modes make their contribution in structural dynamic response, six strong vibration modes were tested at random in the experimental analysis. The change and localization of the six modes are analyzed for each test. The results show that slight changes to the physical parameters are likely to induce remarkable changes and localization of some modal vectors in the RSSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, three existing source spectral models for stochastic finite-fault modeling of ground motion were reviewed. These three models were used to calculate the far-field received energy at a site from a vertical fault and the mean spectral ratio over 15 stations of the Northridge earthquake, and then compared. From the comparison, a necessary measure was observed to maintain the far-field received energy independent of subfault size and avoid overestimation of the long-period spectral level. Two improvements were made to one of the three models (i.e., the model based on dynamic corner frequency) as follows: (i) a new method to compute the subfault corner frequency was proposed, where the subfault corner frequency is determined based on a basic value calculated from the total seismic moment of the entire fault and an increment depending on the seismic moment assigned to the subfault; and (ii) the difference of the radiation energy from each subfault was considered into the scaling factor. The improved model was also compared with the unimproved model through the far-field received energy and the mean spectral ratio. The comparison proves that the improved model allows the received energy to be more independent of subfault size than the unimproved model, and decreases the overestimation degree of the long-period spectral amplitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underground utility tunnels are widely used in urban areas throughout the world for lifeline networks due to their easy maintenance and environmental protection capabilities. However, knowledge about their seismic performance is still quite limited and seismic design procedures are not included in current design codes. This paper describes a series of shaking table tests the authors performed on a scaled utility tunnel model to explore its performance under earthquake excitation. Details of the experimental setup are first presented focusing on aspects such as the design of the soil container, scaled structural model, sensor array arrangement and test procedure. The main observations from the test program, including structural response, soil response, soil-structure interaction and earth pressure, are summarized and discussed. Further, a finite element model (FEM) of the test utility tunnel is established where the nonlinear soil properties are modeled by the Drucker-Prager constitutive model; the master-slave surface mechanism is employed to simulate the soil-structure dynamic interaction; and the confining effect of the laminar shear box to soil is considered by proper boundary modeling. The results from the numerical model are compared with experiment measurements in terms of displacement, acceleration and amplification factor of the structural model and the soil. The comparison shows that the numerical results match the experimental measurements quite well. The validated numerical model can be adopted for further analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative study of selected bridge damage due to the Wenchuan, Northridge, Loma Prieta and San Fernando earthquakes .s described in this paper. Typical ground motion effects considered include large ground fault displacement, liquefaction, landslide, and strong ground shaking. Issues related to falling spans, inadequate detailing for structural ductility and complex bridge configurations are discussed within the context of the recent seismic design codes of China and the US. A significant lesson learned from the Great Wenchuan earthquake, far beyond the opportunities to improve the seismic design provisions for bridges, is articulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt has been made to study the behavior of nailed vertical excavations in medium dense to dense cohesionless soil under seismic conditions using a pseudo-dynamic approach. The effect of several parameters such as angle of internal friction of soil ( ϕ), horizontal ( k ) and vertical ( k ) earthquake acceleration coefficients, amplification factor ( f ), length of nails ( L), angle of nail inclination ( α) and vertical spacing of nails ( S ) on the stability of nailed vertical excavations has been explored. The limit equilibrium method along with a planar failure surface is used to derive the formulation involved with the pseudo-dynamic approach, considering axial pullout of the installed nails. A comparison of the pseudo-static and pseudo-dynamic approaches has been established in order to explore the effectiveness of the pseudo-dynamic approach over pseudo-static analysis, since most of the seismic stability studies on nailed vertical excavations are based on the latter. The results are expressed in terms of the global factor of safety (FOS). Seismic stability, i.e., the FOS of nailed vertical excavations is found to decrease with increase in the horizontal and vertical earthquake forces. The present values of FOS are compared with those available in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic soil-tunnel interaction is studied by indirect boundary element method (IBEM), using the model of a rigid tunnel in layered half-space, which is simplified to a single soil layer on elastic bedrock, subjected to incident plane SH waves. The accuracy of the results is verified through comparison with the analytical solution. It is shown that soil-tunnel interaction in layered half-space is larger than that in homogeneous half-space and this interaction mechanism is essentially different from that of soil-foundation-superstructure interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of different nonlinear modelling strategies to simulate the response of RC columns subjected to axial load combined with cyclic biaxial horizontal loading is compared. The models studied are classified into two categories according to the nonlinearity distribution assumed in the elements: lumped-plasticity and distributed inelasticity. For this study, results of tests on 24 columns subjected to cyclic uniaxial and biaxial lateral displacements were numerically reproduced. The analyses show that the global envelope response is satisfactorily represented with the three modelling strategies, but significant differences were found in the strength degradation for higher drift demands and energy dissipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A structure-dependent explicit method with enhanced stability properties is proposed in this study. In general, the method offers unconditional stability for structural systems except those with a particular instantaneous stiffness hardening behavior. In addition, it is second-order accurate and displays no overshooting in high frequency responses. Numerical experiments reveal that the proposed method saves a substantial amount of computational effort in solving inertial problems where only the low frequency responses are of interest, when compared to a general second-order accurate integration method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simplified multisupport response spectrum method is presented. The structural response is a sum of two components of a structure with a first natural period less than 2 s. The first component is the pseudostatic response caused by the inconsistent motions of the structural supports, and the second is the structural dynamic response to ground motion accelerations. This method is formally consistent with the classical response spectrum method, and the effects of multisupport excitation are considered for any modal response spectrum or modal superposition. If the seismic inputs at each support are the same, the support displacements caused by the pseudostatic response become rigid body displacements. The response spectrum in the case of multisupport excitations then reduces to that for uniform excitations. In other words, this multisupport response spectrum method is a modification and extension of the existing response spectrum method under uniform excitation. Moreover, most of the coherency coefficients in this formulation are simplified by approximating the ground motion excitation as white noise. The results indicate that this simplification can reduce the calculation time while maintaining accuracy. Furthermore, the internal forces obtained by the multisupport response spectrum method are compared with those produced by the traditional response spectrum method in two case studies of existing long-span structures. Because the effects of inconsistent support displacements are not considered in the traditional response spectrum method, the values of internal forces near the supports are underestimated. These regions are important potential failure points and deserve special attention in the seismic design of reticulated structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]