Effect of bidirectional excitation on seismic performance of regular RC frame buildings designed for modern codes

The existing practice to estimate seismic performance of a regular building is to carry out nonlinear time history analysis using two-dimensional models subjected to unidirectional excitations, even though the multiple components of ground motion can affect the seismic response, significantly. During seismic shaking, columns are invariably subjected to bending in two orthogonal vertical planes, which leads to a complex interaction of axial force with the biaxial bending moments. This article compares the seismic performance of regular and symmetric RC moment frame buildings for unidirectional and bidirectional ground motions. The buildings are designed and detailed according to the Indian codes, which are at par with the other modern seismic codes. A fiber-hinge model, duly calibrated with the biaxial experimental results, is utilized to simulate the inelastic behavior of columns under bidirectional bending. A comparison of the estimated seismic collapse capacity is presented, illustrating the importance of considering the bidirectional effects. The results from fragility analysis indicate that the failure probabilities of buildings under the bidirectional excitation are significantly higher as compared to those obtained under the unidirectional excitation.

Inhomogeneous Folding Modes in Infinite Lattices of Rigid Triangulated Miura-ori

Infinite two-dimensional tessellations of triangulated Miura-ori with rigid panels are known to exhibit only homogeneous modes of folding, thereby limiting their usefulness in engineering applications. In this work, we show that the corresponding one-dimensional lattices are less restricted and can exhibit inhomogeneous folding modes of deformation. We demonstrate this by looking at the modes in the null space of Bloch-reduced compatibility matrix in a nodal-displacement-based formulation, that is typically employed in the context of origami structural analysis. We compute the deformation modes that vary non-uniformly across the lattice depending on their wavelength, and identify the minimal number of modes that can represent such deformations. We then present a more efficient formulation based on folding-angles to study the deformation modes of infinite one-dimensional rigid triangulated origami lattices. We derive the degrees of freedom of the tessellations in terms of the minimal number of folding-angles that are required to capture the periodic inhomogeneous deformations of the infinite lattices. Within this formulation, we provide the framework to analytically derive the stiffness matrix of the lattice. Finally, we verify the new formulation by comparing the results with the bar-and-hinge model that is based on nodal-displacements. The observations from our work could have implications for the use of rigid panel origami lattices as acoustic metamaterials.

Vibration Propagation Analysis of Periodic Pipeline With Crack Defects

In this paper, the vibration propagation characteristic is investigated for periodic composite pipeline with crack damage. A novel modified transfer matrix method (TMM) is developed to investigate transverse Band Gap structures (BGs) considering fluid structure interaction, and validated by frequency response function (FRF) for finite period. Field transfer matrix is developed for straight pipeline conveying fluid, and point transfer matrix is derived for circumferential cracks damage based on spring hinge model, which could estimate the equivalent rotational stiffness by local flexibility coefficient method. It’s demonstrated that the existence of small crack damage has negligible effect on BGs, while severe crack damage has significant influence on vibration propagation even it only exists in a single cell. Meanwhile, the difference of FRF between cracked and perfect pipeline provides new idea in diagnosing the crack status. The influence of crack damage on BGs is mainly attributed to the equivalent rotational stiffness. Location of crack damage could affect the stiffness ratio of composite pipeline, and result in the change of original BGs. This study enriches the theoretical TMM for pipeline systems vibration with crack damage, and provides some reference for the stability design of periodic pipeline structures.

Simplified Plastic Hinge Model for Reinforced Concrete Beam–Column Joints with Eccentric Beams

In nonlinear analysis for performance-based design of reinforced concrete moment frames, a plastic hinge spring element is predominantly used in order to simply and accurately describe the inelastic behavior of beam–column joints, including strength degradation. Although current design codes and guidelines provide various beam–column joint models, the focus is on concentric beam–column joints. Therefore, more studies are required for eccentric beam–column joints, which are also common in practice. In the present study, to consider the effect of beam eccentricity on the behavior of beam–column joints, a simplified plastic hinge model was proposed using the effective joint width of current design codes. The proposed model was compared to the cyclic loading test results of beam–column joints with/without beam eccentricity. The comparison showed that the simplified plastic hinge model with the effective joint width of NZS 3101-2006 or Eurocode 8 is considered acceptable for design purpose.

Reprogrammable kinematic branches in tessellated origami structures

We analyze the folding kinematics of a recently proposed origami-based tessellated structure called the Morph pattern, using thin, rigid panel assumptions. We discuss the geometry of the Morph unit cell that can exist in two characteristic modes differing in the mountain/valley assignment of a degree-four vertex and explain how a single tessellation of the Morph structure can undergo morphing through rigid origami kinematics resulting in multiple hybrid states. We describe the kinematics of the tessellated Morph pattern through multiple branches, each path leading to different sets of hybrid states. We study the kinematics of the tessellated structure through local and global Poisson's ratios and derive an analytical condition for which the global ratio switches between negative and positive values. We show that the interplay between the local and global kinematics results in folding deformations in which the hybrid states are either locked in their current modes or are transformable to other modes of the kinematic branches, leading to a reprogrammable morphing behavior of the system. Finally, using a bar-and-hinge model-based numerical framework, we simulate the nonlinear folding behavior of the hybrid systems and verify the deformation characteristics that are predicted analytically.

Application of Model Transformation for Optimized Building Energy Management

This paper describes an approach aiming to automatically transform a model describing a high level physical behavior model into two different optimized building energy management application models. The first step consists in building a hinge model composed of element models. Then based on MDE approach, this model is projected, according to transformation processes, to application models. This paper presents core specifications of manipulation and transformation of hinge model. To illustrate this approach, an example of transformation into both an acausal anticipative model based on mixed integer linear programming problem and a non-linear causal model for fast simulated annealing optimization are shown. These models are used for energy management of a smart building platform named PREDIS/MHI.

Body-Worn IMU Human Skeletal Pose Estimation Using a Factor Graph-Based Optimization Framework

Traditionally, inertial measurement units- (IMU) based human joint angle estimation requires a priori knowledge about sensor alignment or specific calibration motions. Furthermore, magnetometer measurements can become unreliable indoors. Without magnetometers, however, IMUs lack a heading reference, which leads to unobservability issues. This paper proposes a magnetometer-free estimation method, which provides desirable observability qualities under joint kinematics that sufficiently excite the lower body degrees of freedom. The proposed lower body model expands on the current self-calibrating human-IMU estimation literature and demonstrates a novel knee hinge model, the inclusion of segment length anthropometry, segment cross-leg length discrepancy, and the relationship between the knee axis and femur/tibia segment. The maximum a posteriori problem is formulated as a factor graph and inference is performed via post-hoc, on-manifold global optimization. The method is evaluated (N = 12) for a prescribed human motion profile task. Accuracy of derived knee flexion/extension angle (4.34∘ root mean square error (RMSE)) without magnetometers is similar to current state-of-the-art with magnetometer use. The developed framework can be expanded for modeling additional joints and constraints.