Mitigation of Tsunami Debris Impact on Reinforced Concrete Buildings by Fender Structures

Buildings located in coastal regions are prone to tsunami dangers, which often carry debris in the form of shipping containers and boats. This paper presents an approach for the design of fender structures to minimize debris impacts on buildings. The impact of shipping containers, which are categorized as large debris, is considered in the study. Since the weights of shipping containers are standardized, the impact energy can be related to other debris. For a fender structure, cone-type rubber fenders are used to resist the impact of the shipping container. Various fender reactions are considered as parameters to study the efficiency of the fenders. The displacement-controlled nonlinear static analysis is carried out to determine the building capacity. The energy approach for shipping container impact is used to evaluate the resistance of the building. Capacity curves, energy absorptions, inter-story drift ratios of the buildings with and without a fender structure, and the efficiency of the fender are presented. The buildings with a fender structure can absorb the energy from the impact of a loaded shipping container. Conversely, the building without a fender structure cannot resist the impact of a loaded shipping container. From the obtained results, a recommendation is given for buildings with a fender structure. The hydrodynamic force on the fender structure is transferred to the main building through the fender. Hence, the yield force of the fenders affects the performance of the main building that must be considered in the design.

Earthquake Performance Analysis of Steel Structures with A3 Plan Irregularities

In earthquake engineering, a performance-based design method is used to determine the level of the expected performance of the structures under the earthquake effect. The level of performance is related to the damage situation that could be occurred in the structure after the earthquake. In the performance-based structural design, it is predicted that more than one damage levels emerge under one certain earthquake effect. In this study, the seismic behavior of steel structures with plan irregularities in the Turkey Building Earthquake Code in the 2018 (TBEC-2018) is investigated by the nonlinear static analysis methods. The selected steel structures are located in İzmir, Turkey. The Turkey Earthquake Code in 2018 is considered for assessing seismic performance evaluation of the selected moment-resisting frame steel building. Four different A3 type irregularity was investigated. The steel building with no irregularity in its plan. was selected as the structure of the reference. The performance goals of the five different steel structures are evaluated by applying the pushover and procedures of the TBEC-2018. The steel structures were compared by obtaining pushover curves for both the X and Y directions. The results show that the effects of A3 type irregularity should be not considered in design and buildings without irregularities are safer.

Nonlinear Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls Using Nonlinear Layered Shell Approach

This study discusses nonlinear modelling of a reinforced concrete wall utilizing the nonlinear layered shell approach. Rebar, unconfined and confined concrete behaviours are defined nonlinearly using proposed analytical models in the literature. Then, finite element model is validated using experimental results. It is shown that the nonlinear layered shell approach is capable of estimating wall response (i.e., stiffness, ultimate strength, and cracking pattern) with adequate accuracy and low computational effort. Modal analysis is conducted to evaluate the inherent characteristics of the wall to choose a logical loading pattern for the nonlinear static analysis. Moreover, pushover analysis’ outputs are interpreted comprehensibly from cracking of the concrete until reaching the rupture step by step.

Effect of Different Lateral Reinforcement and its Spacing on Column Reinforced with Hollow Composite Sections

Hollow Concrete Columns (HCCs) are one of the preferred construction systems in civil infrastructures including bridge piers, ground piles, and utility poles to minimize the overall weight and costs. HCCs are also considered a solution to increase the strength to mass ratio of structures. However, HCCs are subjected to brittle failure behaviour by concrete crushing means that the displacement capacity and the strength after steel yielding in HCCs are decreasing due to the unconfined concrete core. Absence of the concrete core changes the inner stress formation in HCCs from triaxial to biaxial causes lower strength. A new type of Hollow Composite Reinforcing System (HCRS) has recently been designed and developed to create voids in structural members. This reinforcing system has four external flanges to facilitate mechanical bonding and interaction with concrete. Therefore, providing the inner Hollow Composite Reinforced Sections (HCRS) can significantly increase strength by providing a higher reinforcement ratio and confining the inner concrete core triaxially. The corrosion of steel is also a notable factor in the case of steel reinforced HCCs which became more critical because their outer and inner surfaces exposing more concrete surface area. An alternative reinforcement is Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars, can overcome the brittle behaviour of steel reinforced HCC. In previous studies, HCC shows high strength capacity, when appropriate reinforcement in the form of longitudinal GFRP bars, laterally using GFRP spirals and internally using rectangular HCRS which provide enough inner confinement. However, the spirals laterally restrict the expansion of the concrete core and limit the buckling of the longitudinal bars, allowing the columns to keep resisting applied loads and gives maximum strength. Therefore, in this study, the spirals are replaced by discrete hoops as lateral reinforcement to analyse the effect on structural behaviour of HCC reinforced with rectangle shaped HCRS under axial load using ANSYS software. The results show that column laterally reinforced with spiral attained insignificant increase in strength than their counterpart specimens confined with hoops. So, the circular hoops were found to be as efficient in confining concrete as spirals in a column reinforced internally with rectangle shaped HCRS. The increase in volumetric ratio can be achieved by reducing the spacing between lateral reinforcement. So, this study also investigates the effectiveness of reducing the spiral spacing in HCC reinforced with HCRS, three models with lateral spacing of 50mm, 40mm and 30mm are modelled and analysed. The results show that columns with closer spiral spacing attained more axial stability. Keywords: Hollow Concrete Column, Rectangular Hollow Composite Reinforced Sections, GFRP Spirals, GFRP Hoops, Nonlinear Static Analysis, ANSYS.

Dynamic Identification Tests of 20th Century Historic Masonry Buildings in Japan

This paper discussed the application of health monitoring systems to 20th-century historic buildings. Natural disasters are major threats to monuments. They are often seismically vulnerable and require interventions. However, taking into account their historic and cultural values, it is appropriate to observe long-term behaviour before making a decision on intervention schemes. To this aim, health monitoring is considered an effective approach. In recent years, MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) accelerometers have been attracting attention for their convenience and efficacy. Nonetheless, the reliability of MEMS accelerometers still needs to be examined for the monitoring of monuments as sufficient research contributions have not been made. This paper presented two case studies that were monitored by means of MEMS accelerometers. They were masonry structures positioned in seismic-prone regions in Japan. A number of earthquakes were detected by the accelerometers during one year of monitoring. To examine the accuracy of the adopted MEMS accelerometers, dynamic identification tests were conducted using high-sensitivity strain-gauge accelerometers and servo velocity meters. Based on responses obtained from the tests, numerical simulation was performed. Nonlinear static analysis was performed. The numerical simulation permitted the comparison of reliability among sensors and test types. This paper provided suggestions for the dynamic identification tests of heritage structures.

Analysis of Concrete Column Reinforced Internally with Hollow Composite Sections

Hollow Concrete Columns (HCCs) are one of the preferred construction systems in civil infrastructures including bridge piers, ground piles, and utility poles to minimize the overall weight and costs. HCCs are also considered a solution to increase the strength to mass ratio of structures. However, HCCs are subjected to brittle failure behaviour by concrete crushing means that the displacement capacity and the strength after steel yielding in HCCs are decreasing due to the unconfined concrete core. Absence of the concrete core changes the inner stress formation in HCCs from triaxial to biaxial causes lower strength. A new type of Hollow Composite Reinforcing System (HCRS) has recently been designed and developed to create voids in structural members. This reinforcing system has four external flanges to facilitate mechanical bonding and interaction with concrete. Therefore, providing the inner Hollow Composite Reinforced Sections (HCRS) can significantly increase strength by providing a higher reinforcement ratio and confining the inner concrete core triaxially. The corrosion of steel is also a notable factor in the case of steel reinforced HCCs which became more critical because their outer and inner surfaces exposing more concrete surface area. An alternative reinforcement is Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars, can overcome the brittle behaviour of steel reinforced HCC. In previous studies, HCC shows high strength capacity, when appropriate reinforcement in the form of longitudinal GFRP bars, laterally using GFRP spirals and internally using newly developed HCRS which provide enough inner confinement. Therefore, this study aims to determine the effect of HCRS of different cross sections and also the effect of change in position of its flanges on the axial performance of HCC analytically using ANSYS software. Keywords: Hollow Concrete Column, Hollow Composite Reinforced Sections, GFRP bars, GFRP Spirals, Nonlinear Static Analysis, ANSYS.

Investigation on Lateral Loading on Masonry Walls

5) Though a traditional material used for construction for ages, masonry is a complex composite material, and its mechanical behavior is influenced by a large number of factors, is not generally well understood. This research aims to study the methodology available in the literature to evaluate the increase in performance of masonry by applying different reinforcement options under in-plane lateral loading. Nonlinear static analysis has been carried out as part of this research to achieve the above objectives. Different unreinforced masonry wall panels were analyzed at various load conditions. Material properties for the masonry wall were taken from the experimental test results of previous literature. The walls were first checked for two failure mechanisms. The stress distributions of walls were checked in each step of analysis and shear failure, and rocking failure was found. Each wall was then analyzed for six different reinforcement options. The comparison of results obtained from the reinforced wall analysis with that of the unreinforced wall indicated significant increase in lateral load-bearing capacity and decreased wall displacement with reinforcement. The maximum increase in load-bearing capacity was achieved by adding chicken wire mesh or CFRP bands throughout the wall while the maximum decrease in displacement was achieved by adding 12 mm diameter bars at the spacing of one meter.