Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics最新文献

Suspended ceilings are critical nonstructural elements, and their seismic damage in buildings highlighted the incompatibility between the design and performance of structural and nonstructural elements. In order to study the performance of less researched continuous-plasterboard ceilings, shake table testing was conducted on a ceiling system vertically supported at grid ends with free edges in its plane and suspended by vertical struts and lateral braces. The system had a clearance of 20 mm at the grid ends to accommodate ceiling movements. The ceiling performed satisfactorily for floor accelerations ranging from 0.2 g to 1.4 g without any visible damage. However, the ceiling was slightly rotated and lightly damaged at its perimeter for an extreme dynamic loading of sinusoidal excitation at its natural frequencies. In addition, the experimental performance of the ceiling was numerically validated using nonlinear and linearized responses of sub-assemblage test data of critical components and connections. It was observed that the developed numerical models can be used to predict the behavior of such ceiling systems as an alternative to evaluation by shake table testing.

This study presents the experimental results on a scaled bridge model with a newly proposed unidirectional rocking isolation bearing system (referred to as Uni-RIBS) on a shaking table. The bridge model features one superstructure girder and four bearings. The experimental input encompassed a variety of recorded, design, and harmonic ground motions, characterized by differing peak accelerations, with or without vertical components, and time-scaled attributes. The superstructure girder's mass was altered for two conditions (full and half). The test results validate the rocking mechanism inherent in the Uni-RIBS and demonstrate the analytical model's accuracy in predicting the system's dynamics, including its negative stiffness, mass-independent, and energy dissipation characteristics during bearing rotation reversals. Additionally, this study examines the effectiveness of a simplified numerical model in varying complexities for predicting the seismic responses of the bridge model.

For the first time, the present work derives explicit equations predicting the downward ground displacement of a sliding model simulating both the frictional and rotational effects under idealized acceleration pulses, in the form of simple formulas. Explicit equations allow not only accurate predictions in all cases, but also analysis of the solutions and derivation of expressions for limit cases. Half and full cycles of (i) rectangular, (ii) triangular, (iii) trapezoidal, and (iv) sinusoidal pulses and slopes both under static stability and instability are considered. For this purpose, for pulse cases (i)–(iii) recently proposed implicit analytical solutions are used, while for case (iv), first the analytical equations predicting the sliding displacement and velocity of a sinusoidal pulse in terms of time are obtained and then the time duration of motion is estimated, by using the Bhaskara approximation of the sine and cosine functions. Then, from these, solutions for the particular limit cases corresponding to the “conventional” sliding-block model (Case A) and the post-failure run-off movement without any applied pulse (Case B) are derived. The results for Case A provide a useful tabulation of sliding-block solutions, some of which are not reported in the literature. The results for Case B provide novel predictions of the time duration of motion in the case of post-failure movement. The general solutions are analyzed graphically and the deviation from the solutions of Cases A and B is illustrated. Finally, the explicit solutions are compared to solutions of actual accelerograms.

This paper contributes to the further development of seismic resilient infrastructure by introducing a novel prototype bridge which integrates tubular steel piers with superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA). The proposed bridge pier is composed of a circular steel tube which is bonded to a superelastic SMA tube in regions of high stress. The pier is distinguished by its ability to minimize residual drifts following inelastic deformations induced by cyclic loading. Three-dimensional continuum finite element (FE) models are utilized to examine its lateral behavior. Experimental data is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the continuum FE procedure in replicating the cyclic response and capturing both global and localized behaviors. A novel composite material model is proposed to represent the degradation of strength and accumulation of irreversible strains in the cyclic response of superelastic SMAs. An iterative procedure for the calibration of this material is presented. Investigations, employing the calibrated FE procedure, focus on the quasi-static cyclic response of steel piers with superelastic SMA in the plastic hinge zone, aiming to identify the optimal length of the SMA tube for achieving a self-centering response with reduced residual deformation. The study is then further expanded to examine the seismic response of a bridge structure incorporating such piers. Development of the FE model for the prototype bridge includes the modelling of the piers using continuum elements, while the superstructure, bearing units, abutment walls, and backfill material are modelled using discrete elements. Nonlinear time history analyses are undertaken to investigate the effects of column wall thickness and materials used in the plastic hinge zones of the piers. Dynamic FE study results indicate that bridges employing such piers are capable of returning to their original position, provided the SMA tube is of adequate length.

Base-isolated hospitals are frequently preferred to fixed-base ones because of their improved seismic structural performance. Despite this, the question remains open on the advisability of using this modern seismic protection technology in preference to other conventional solutions, on the grounds of a holistic approach based on limiting non-structural damage as well as continuity of service to the community in the aftermath of an earthquake. Two full-scale four-storey (fixed-base) and three-storey (base-isolated) hospital buildings have been recently built and subjected to three-dimensional shaking table tests at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (Japan), with particular attention to evaluating and classifying functionality of non-structural components and vital medical equipment. A two-phase experimental campaign was carried out considering two earthquakes scaled at different intensity levels and applied along the horizontal and vertical directions. The current study aims to provide results of a numerical structural and non-structural blind prediction of these hospital settings. A homemade numerical code is developed to account for lumped plasticity modelling of steel frame members and variability of the friction coefficient of spherical sliding bearings. Moreover, three non-structural components are modelled in the fixed-base structure: that is, elastic single degree of freedom systems representing two tanks filled with sand at the top floor; elastic beam elements for piping at the third floor; five-element macro-model for the in-plane-out-of-plane nonlinear response of partition walls at the first floor. The identification of predominant vibration periods of the fixed-base structure is carried out using a homemade numerical code based on the continuous wavelet transforms in combination with the complex Morlet wavelet. Finally, the sliding and rocking motion of three items of medical equipment (i.e., incubator at third floor, dialysis machine at second floor and surgical bed at first floor) are analysed by means of a homemade numerical code, considering acceleration time histories of selected structural nodes of the fixed-base structure.

Regional seismic fragility assessment of bridge portfolios must address the embedded uncertainties and variations stemming from both the earthquake hazard and bridge attributes (e.g., geometry, material, design detail). To achieve bridge-specific fragility assessment, multivariate probabilistic seismic demand models (PSDM) have recently been developed that use both the ground motion intensity measure and bridge parameters as inputs. However, explicitly utilizing bridge parameters as inputs requires numerous nonlinear response history analyses (NRHAs). In this situation, the associated computational cost increases exponentially for high-fidelity bridge models with complex component connectivity and sophisticated material constitutive laws. Moreover, it remains unclear how many analyses are sufficient for the response data and the resulting demand model to cover the entire solution space without overfitting. To deal with these issues, this study integrates Gaussian process regression (GPR) and active learning (AL) into a multistep workflow to achieve efficient regional seismic fragility assessment of bridge portfolios. The GPR relaxes the probability distribution assumptions made in typical cloud analysis-based PSDMs to enable heteroskedastic nonparametric seismic demand modeling. The AL leverages the varying standard deviation to select the least but most representative bridge-model-ground-motion sample pairs to conduct NRHA with much-improved efficiency. Both independent and correlated multi-output GPRs are proposed to deal with bridge portfolios with seismic demand correlations among multiple components (column, bearing, shear key, abutment, unseating, and joint seal). Considering a single benchmark highway bridge class in California as the case study, the AL-GPR framework and the associated component-level fragility results are investigated in terms of their efficiency, accuracy, and robustness. The fragility results show that 70 AL-selected samples would enable the GPR to derive bridge-specific fragility models comparable to the ones using the multiple stripes analysis approach with 1950 ground motions considered for each individual bridge. The AL-GPR model also successfully captures the physics of how bridge span length, deck area, column slenderness, and steel reinforcement ratio would change the damage state exceedance probabilities of different bridge components. The efficiency of AL stems from the fact that, with the multi-output independent GPR, a stable and reliable fragility model can be achieved using 50 AL-selected samples compared to at least 270 randomly chosen samples. The proposed methodology advances the state of the art in enabling more efficient and reliable regional seismic fragility assessment of multi-component bridge portfolios.

Understanding and accurately characterizing energy dissipation mechanisms in civil structures during earthquakes is an important element of seismic assessment and design. The most commonly used model is attributed to Rayleigh. This paper proposes a systematic approach to quantify the uncertainty associated with Rayleigh's damping model. Bayesian calibration with embedded model error is employed to treat the coefficients of the Rayleigh model as random variables using modal damping ratios. Through a numerical example, we illustrate how this approach works and how the calibrated model can address modeling uncertainty associated with the Rayleigh damping model.

The viscoelastic dampers (VEDs), which can provide both stiffness and damping, have been recently introduced into the field of structural vibration control for seismic enhancement of civil engineering structures. In this study, a kind of high damping acrylic polymer matrix VEDs (HDPVED) is developed independently, and this innovative HDPVED can solve the significant problem of service performance under medium-high temperature environments, as well as low-frequency vibration control under earthquake actions for civil engineering structures. To systematically investigate the influencing rules of frequency, temperature, and displacement amplitude on the mechanical properties and damping dissipation performance of HDPVEDs, a series of dynamic mechanical performance tests of the developed HDPVEDs are carried out at different frequencies, temperatures, and displacement amplitudes. The research results show that HDPVED exhibits excellent damping dissipation capability and adaptability under medium-high temperature environments and low-frequency excitations. The mechanical properties and energy dissipation performance present a strong correlation with frequency, temperature and displacement amplitude, and there is an obvious coupling effect between the three influencing factors. Based on the macroscopic mechanical property research of HDPVED, the microscopic damping mechanism and microscopic mechanical properties of HDPVED are then investigated. High-order fractional derivative fraction Voigt and Maxwell model in parallel (FVMP) models are preferred to characterize the combined hyper-elasticity and viscoelasticity owned by networked molecular chains and free molecular chains. The breaking and reconstruction theory of microphysical bonds is used to assess the effect of packing particles, and the time-temperature equivalence principle is introduced to assess the effect of temperature. The multi-scale refinement model is proposed, and the validity and accuracy of this model are verified by testing data of HDPVED. The study results show that the proposed model can accurately describe the effects of frequency, temperature, displacement amplitude, and microstructure on the multi-scale mechanical properties of HDPVED. It provides a theoretical basis for the multi-scale design and development of high damping VEDs.

Displacement response is critical data for post-earthquake fast building assessment. However, directly measuring building displacement response remains a great challenge in practice. Therefore, it is practically common to estimate displacement response from acceleration response using double integration. Unfortunately, the low-frequency component of displacement obtained by double integrating acceleration often contains noise that is indistinguishable from low-frequency displacement components. Consequently, the maximum displacement estimated from acceleration is commonly underestimated in comparison to its true value due to the removal of the low-frequency components. This can potentially lead to an underestimation of post-earthquake building damage state, especially when a building undergoes significant nonlinear deformation. This study develops a framework to improve the accuracy of the maximum displacement obtained from floor acceleration data by fusing it with the low-frequency displacement component estimated from an equivalent SDOF analysis for both reinforced concrete (RC) and steel structures. Procedures for constructing the equivalent SDOF model of a building and a procedure for extracting the low-frequency component from the analysis displacement were developed. The proposed method was verified using a diverse range of case studies from numerical simulation and experimental studies under different seismic records for both RC and steel structures. The results showed that the proposed method was effective with a range of seismic characteristics and damage levels. A significant reduction in maximum displacement errors was observed for cases with significant nonlinear deformation, which may contribute to a more accurate post-earthquake building assessment.