• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제12권5호
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• pp.489-499
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• 2017

The effects of past earthquakes have demonstrated the seismic vulnerability of confined masonry structures (CMSs) to earthquakes. The results of experimental analysis indicate that damage to these structures depends on lateral displacement applied to the walls. Seismic evaluation lacks an analytical approach because of the complexity of the behavior of this type of structure; an empirical approach is often used for this purpose. Seismic assessment and risk analysis of CMSs, especially in area have a large number of such buildings is difficult and could be riddled with error. The present study used analytical and numerical models to develop a simplified nonlinear displacement-based approach for seismic assessment of a CMS. The methodology is based on the concept of ESDOF and displacement demand and is compared with displacement capacity at the characteristic period of vibration according to performance level. Displacement demand was identified using the nonlinear displacement spectrum for a specified limit state. This approach is based on a macro model and nonlinear incremental dynamic analysis of a 3D prototype structure taking into account uncertainty of the mechanical properties and results in a simple, precise method for seismic assessment of a CMS. To validate the approach, a case study was considered in the form of an analytical fragility curve which was then compared with the precise method.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.135-153
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• 2013

This study investigates the direct displacement based design (DDBD) approach for different types of reinforced concrete structural systems including single moment-resisting, dual wall-frame and dual steel-braced systems. In this methodology, the displacement profile is calculated and the equivalent single degree of freedom system is then modeled considering the damping characteristics of each member. Having calculated the effective period and secant stiffness of the structure, the base shear is obtained, based on which the design process can be carried out. For each system three frames are designed using DDBD approach. The frames are then analyzed using nonlinear time-history analysis with 7 earthquake accelerograms and the damage index is investigated through lateral drift profile of the models. Results of the analyses and comparison of the nonlinear time-history analysis results indicate efficiency of the DDBD approach for different reinforced concrete structural systems.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.147-154
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• 2020

A novel approach for predicting lateral displacement caused by pile installation in anisotropic clay is presented, on the basis of the cylindrical and spherical cavities expansion theory. The K₀-based modified Cam-clay (K₀-MCC) model is adopted for the K₀-consolidated clay and the process of pile installation is taken as the cavity expansion problem in undrained condition. The radial displacement of plastic region is obtained by combining the cavity wall boundary and the elastic-plastic (EP) boundary conditions. The predicted equations of lateral displacement during single pile and multi-pile installation are proposed, and the hydraulic fracture problem in the vicinity of the pile tip is investigated. The comparison between the lateral displacement obtained from the presented approach and the measured data from Chai et al. (2005) is carried out and shows a good agreement. It is suggested that the presented approach is a useful tool for the design of soft subsoil improvement resulting from the pile installation.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제30권3호
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• pp.273-286
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• 2022

In recent years, vision-based monitoring has received great attention. However, structural identification using vision-based displacement measurements is far less established. Especially, simultaneous identification of structural systems and unknown excitation using vision-based displacement measurements is still a challenging task since the unknown excitations do not appear directly in the observation equations. Moreover, measurement accuracy deteriorates over a wider field of view by vision-based monitoring, so, only a portion of the structure is measured instead of targeting a whole structure when using monocular vision. In this paper, the identification of structural system and excitations using vision-based displacement measurements is investigated. It is based on substructure identification approach to treat of problem of limited field of view of vision-based monitoring. For the identification of a target substructure, substructure interaction forces are treated as unknown inputs. A smoothing extended Kalman filter with unknown inputs without direct feedthrough is proposed for the simultaneous identification of substructure and unknown inputs using vision-based displacement measurements. The smoothing makes the identification robust to measurement noises. The proposed algorithm is first validated by the identification of a three-span continuous beam bridge under an impact load. Then, it is investigated by the more difficult identification of a frame and unknown wind excitation. Both examples validate the good performances of the proposed method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제12권6호
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• pp.573-594
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• 2001

A two-level displacement-based design procedure is developed. To obtain the displacement demands, elastic spectra for occasional earthquakes and inelastic spectra for rare earthquakes are used. Minimum global stiffness and strength to be supplied to the structure are based on specified maximum permissible drift limits and on the condition that the structure responds within the elastic range for occasional earthquakes. The performance of the structure may be assessed by an inelastic push-over analysis to the required displacement and the evaluation of damage indices. The approach is applied to the design of a five-story reinforced concrete coupled wall structure located in the most hazardous seismic region of Argentina. The inelastic dynamic response of the structure subjected to real and artificially generated acceleration time histories is also analyzed. Finally, advantages and limitations of the proposed procedure from the conceptual point of view and practical application are discussed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.201-215
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• 2019

A new approach of analyzing the displacements and stress of the surrounding rock for shallow tunnels excavated under non-axisymmetric displacement boundary conditions on a vertical surface is investigated in this study. In the proposed approach, by using a virtual image technique, the shear stress of the vertical ground surface is revised to be zero, and elastic solutions of the surrounding rock are obtained before stress revision. To revise the vertical normal stress and shear stress of horizontal ground surface generated by the combined action of the actual and image sinks, the harmonic functions and corresponding stress function solutions were adopted. Based on the Boussinesq's solutions and integral method, the horizontal normal stress of the vertical ground surface is revised to be zero. Based on the linear superposition principle, the final solution of the displacements and stress were proposed by superimposing the solutions obtained by the virtual image technique and the stress revision on the horizontal and vertical ground surfaces. Furthermore, the ground settlements and lateral displacements of the horizontal and vertical ground surfaces are derived by the proposed approach. The proposed approach was well verified by comparing with the numerical method. The discussion based on the proposed approach in the manuscript shows that smaller horizontal ground settlements will be induced by lower tunnel buried depths and smaller limb distances. The proposed approach for the displacement and stress of the surrounding rocks can provide some practical information about the surrounding rock stability analysis of shallow tunnels excavated under non-axisymmetric displacement boundary conditions on a vertical surface.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제22권6호
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• pp.571-584
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• 2022

The residual displacement ratio (RDRs) response spectra have been generally used as an important means to evaluate the post-earthquake repairability, and the ratios of residual to maximum inelastic displacement are considered to be more appropriate for development of the spectra. This methodology, however, assumes that the expected residual displacement can be computed as the product of the RDRs and maximum inelastic displacement, without considering the correlation between these two variables, which inevitably introduces potential systematic error. For providing an adequately accurate estimate of residual displacement, while accounting for the collapse resistance performance prior to the repairability evaluation, a probability-based procedure to estimate the residual displacement demands using the nonlinear static analysis (NSA) is developed for single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. To this end, the energy-based equivalent damping ratio used for NSA is revised to obtain the maximum displacement coincident with the nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) results in the mean sense. Then, the possible systematic error resulted from RDRs spectra methodology is examined based on the NTHA results of SDOF systems. Finally, the statistical relation between the residual displacement and the NSA-based maximum displacement is established. The results indicate that the energy-based equivalent damping ratio will underestimate the damping for short period ranges, and overestimate the damping for longer period ranges. The RDRs spectra methodology generally leads to the results being non-conservative, depending on post-yield stiffness. The proposed approach emphasizes that the repairability evaluation should be based on the premise of no collapse, which matches with the current performance-based seismic assessment procedure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제41권6호
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• pp.759-773
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• 2012

The objective of this paper is to present an energy-based method for calculating target displacement of RC structures. The method, which uses the Newmark-Hall pseudo-velocity spectrum, is called the "Pseudo-velocity Spectrum (PSVS) Method". The method is based on the energy balance concept that uses the equality of energy demand and energy capacity of the structure. First, nonlinear static analyses are performed for five, eight and ten-story RC frame structures and pushover curves are obtained. Then the pushover curves are converted to energy capacity diagrams. Seven strong ground motions that were recorded at different soil sites in Turkey are used to obtain the pseudo-acceleration and the pseudo-velocity response spectra. Later, the response spectra are idealised with the Newmark-Hall approximation. Afterwards, energy demands for the RC structures are calculated using the idealised pseudo-velocity spectrum. The displacements, obtained from the energy capacity diagrams that fit to the energy demand values of the RC structures, are accepted as the energy-based performance point of the structures. Consequently, the target displacement values determined from the PSVS Method are checked using the displacement-based successive approach in the Turkish Seismic Design Code. The results show that the target displacements of RC frame structures obtained from the PSVS Method are very close to the values calculated by the approach given in the Turkish Seismic Design Code.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.173-190
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• 2011

As a practical and effective seismic resisting technology, the base isolation system has seen extensive applications in buildings and bridges. However, a few problems associated with conventional lead-rubber bearings have been identified after historical strong earthquakes, e.g., excessive permanent deformations of bearings and potential unseating of bridge decks. Recently the applications of shape memory alloys (SMA) have received growing interest in the area of seismic response mitigation. As a result, a variety of SMA-based base isolators have been developed. These novel isolators often lead to minimal permanent deformations due to the self-centering feature of SMA materials. However, a rational design approach is still missing because of the fact that conventional design method cannot be directly applied to these novel devices. In light of this limitation, a displacement-based design approach for highway bridges with SMA isolators is proposed in this paper. Nonlinear response spectra, derived from typical hysteretic models for SMA, are employed in the design procedure. SMA isolators and bridge piers are designed according to the prescribed performance objectives. A prototype reinforced concrete (RC) highway bridge is designed using the proposed design approach. Nonlinear dynamic analyses for different seismic intensity levels are carried out using a computer program called "OpenSees". The efficacy of the displacement-based design approach is validated by numerical simulations. Results indicate that a properly designed RC highway bridge with novel SMA isolators may achieve minor damage and minimal residual deformations under frequent and rare earthquakes. Nonlinear static analysis is also carried out to investigate the failure mechanism and the self-centering ability of the designed highway bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제17권6호
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• pp.903-915
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• 2016

The classical Kalman filter (KF) provides a practical and efficient state estimation approach for structural identification and vibration control. However, the classical KF approach is applicable only when external inputs are assumed known. Over the years, some approaches based on Kalman filter with unknown inputs (KF-UI) have been presented. However, these approaches based solely on acceleration measurements are inherently unstable which leads poor tracking and so-called drifts in the estimated unknown inputs and structural displacement in the presence of measurement noises. Either on-line regularization schemes or post signal processing is required to treat the drifts in the identification results, which prohibits the real-time identification of joint structural state and unknown inputs. In this paper, it is aimed to extend the classical KF approach to circumvent the above limitation for real time joint estimation of structural states and the unknown inputs. Based on the scheme of the classical KF, analytical recursive solutions of an improved Kalman filter with unknown excitations (KF-UI) are derived and presented. Moreover, data fusion of partially measured displacement and acceleration responses is used to prevent in real time the so-called drifts in the estimated structural state vector and unknown external inputs. The effectiveness and performance of the proposed approach are demonstrated by some numerical examples.