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The failure mode of concrete columns in subway stations during seismic events can be affected by the dynamic fluctuation of the axial forces. This study conducted quasi-static tests with bidirectional loading on three scaled rectangular columns to investigate the influence of highly variable axial compression ratio (ACR). A detailed analysis was conducted of the impact of the highly variable ACR on the column failure mode, reinforcement strains, and hysteretic behavior, and the repairability assessment was discussed. Numerical analysis of the effect of ACR variations was carried out based on the experimental results. In these experiments, the failure modes of central columns in Dakai Station, Japan, during the Kobe earthquake were reproduced, and three columns exhibited compressive-bending-shear damage and compressive-bending damage. As the ACR varied up to three cycles during one horizontal loading cycle, the hysteresis curve of the columns exhibited notable asymmetry. Furthermore, with a large variation of ACR amplitude, the stirrups of the column were fractured due to excessive shear effects. The bearing capacity, energy dissipation, and stiffness degradation of the columns were significantly adversely affected. A reparability assessment of the columns, based on the distribution of reinforcement strains, residual displacements, and concrete damage, is proposed. The effects of varying frequency and amplitude of different vertical ACRs on the hysteretic behavior of columns were analyzed numerically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method to calculate structural functionality for building structures based on structural natural frequency was proposed for seismic loading events. Structural functionality loss and recovery were determined by monitoring the change of structural natural frequency during the earthquake events or repair activities. A shape factor was introduced, structural functionality recovery function (SFRF), to consider the repair strategy and repair speed. As an example, this method was applied to obtain the structural functionality curve and seismic resilience of a half scale two-story reinforced concrete (RC) frame structure. This structure was subjected to a series of ground motions on a shake table and then repaired by carbon fiber cloth a total of four times. The results indicate that the SFRF is able to capture the recovery trend of a structure in the repair process. Meanwhile, a damage index-repair target (DI-RT) curve, representing the 5% difference between the proposed and traditional SFRFs, was used to investigate the impact of structural damage degree and repair target. The areas above the curve indicates that the difference between the proposed and traditional SFRFs cannot be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The safety of railway vehicles running on bridges needs to be evaluated in the seismic design of bridges. This study examined the spectral intensity calculated from the lateral vibration of the bridge deck during earthquakes, a Japanese code-based index to measure bridge vibration's strength. In addition, the effect of the torsion of the bridge deck on vehicle derailment is investigated using a nonlinear vehicle–track–bridge model. The bridge deck torsion increases the derailment risk, especially for bridges with a low natural frequency. The reason lies in that the lateral and torsional deck motions are highly correlated for bridges with lower frequency. Based on this observation, a code-type formula was proposed to evaluate the vehicle running safety including both lateral and torsional motions of the bridge deck. The accuracy of the proposed formula was demonstrated by comparison with vehicle–track–bridge simulation excited by ground motion records. The new procedure overcomes the non-conservative assessment of derailment caused by ignoring bridge torsion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Displacement-based seismic design often requires nonlinear time history simulation of building responses which is computationally intensive. This technical note presents an artificial neural network (ANN) designed to generate max inter-story drift for buildings with post-tensioned mass timber (MT) rocking walls systems. This particular lateral system was selected because it is an innovative system with limited physical design parameters, making it an ideal candidate for ANN. The proposed model achieved significantly higher computational efficiency than time history simulation, while maintaining similar level of accuracy. The proposed method could potentially be used for automated design of MT rocking wall lateral systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway vehicles frequently have derailed during major earthquakes. Although a probabilistic approach based on fragility analysis was established in structural engineering, it has never been applied to railway vehicles. Thus, the aim of this study was to select optimal intensity measures (IMs) and develop fragility curves for the derailment of vehicles. Eight commonly seen IMs were examined to determine their suitability for use in analyzing the derailment of vehicles. The railway vehicle response was analyzed using a nonlinear vehicle-track simulation, and 22 far-field and 28 near-field ground motion records were used as input. Based on the results of the simulation, the correlations of these IMs with the responses of vehicles were evaluated in terms of commonly accepted criteria in the literature, such as efficiency, practicality and sufficiency. It was found that spectral IMs were superior to peak-type IMs. In addition, the acceleration spectral intensity (ASI) and the velocity spectral intensity (SI) were shown to be optimal IMs for the evaluation of derailments. Using the selected IM (ASI), derailment fragility curves were developed for three levels of vehicle performance, which facilitated the probabilistic assessment of vehicle derailment in a performance-based manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]