Influence of the head and tip connection on the seismic performance of micropiles

This paper presents a study of the influence of connection conditions at the head and tip of micropiles on their response to seismic loading. The study is carried using a fully three-dimensional finite element modeling. The soil is assumed to be elastic with Rayleigh damping. The superstructure is modeled by a single degree of freedom system composed of a concentrated mass and a column. The study is carried out for both vertical and inclined micropiles. The results of analyses show that a pinned connection between the micropiles and the cap leads to a reduction in the axial force and bending moment in micropiles, in particular for inclined micropiles. They also show that the embeddement of the tip of micropiles in a stiff substratum layer leads to a dramatic increase in the internal forces in the micropiles.     

Influence of plasticity on the seismic soil–micropiles–structure interaction

This paper includes an analysis of the influence of soil plasticity on the seismic response of micropiles. Analysis is carried out using a global three-dimensional modeling in the time domain. The soil behavior is described using the non-associated Mohr–Coulomb criterion. Both the micropiles and the superstructure are modeled as three-dimensional beam elements. Proper boundary conditions are used to ensure waves transmission through the lateral boundaries of the soil mass. Analyses are first conducted for harmonic loadings and then for real earthquake records. They show that plasticity could have a significant influence on the seismic response of the soil–micropiles–structure systems. This influence depends on the amplitude of the seismic loading and the dominant frequencies of both the input motion and the soil–piles–structure system.     

Dynamic stiffness of deep foundations with inclined piles

The influence of inclined piles on the dynamic response of deep foundations and superstructures is still not well understood and needs further research. For this reason, impedance functions of deep foundations with inclined piles, obtained numerically from a boundary element–finite element coupling model, are provided in this paper. More precisely, vertical, horizontal, rocking and horizontal–rocking crossed dynamic stiffness and damping functions of single inclined piles and 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 pile groups with battered elements are presented in a set of plots. The soil is assumed to be a homogeneous viscoelastic isotropic half‐space and the piles are modeled as elastic compressible Euler–Bernoulli beams. The results for different pile group configurations, pile–soil stiffness ratios and rake angles are presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于结构台阵记录的地震响应分析

为了研究土-结构相互作用对高层建筑地震响应数值模拟的影响．选择一栋具有地震观测记录的高层建筑（结构台阵）作为研究对象．利用Abaqus有限元软件和2009年姚安地震加速度记录,并假定了水平成层和有倾角成层的2种土介质模型．进行土-结构动力反应分析。结果表明：有倾角成层土-桩-结构相互作用模型的计算结果与观测资料相比有明显的放大现象,在NS方向体现的更加明显。这说明,就高层建筑的抗震分析而言,土介质模型对计算结果影响很大,在进行地震作用下土-结构地震响应分析时．土层模型应尽可能与真实土层相符。否则其计算结果会产生较大误差。     

Development of a novel sacrificial-energy dissipation outrigger system for tall buildings

The frame-core tube-outrigger structural system is widely used in tall buildings, in which outriggers coordinate the deformation between the core tube and the moment frame, leading to a larger structural lateral stiffness. Existing studies indicate that outriggers can be designed as “fuses” of tall buildings through dissipating seismic energy after yielding, to protect the main structure. To date, both conventional and buckling-restrained brace (BRB) outriggers have been applied in practice. Subjected to the maximum considered earthquake (MCE), the hardening effect of BRB outriggers increases the damage of other structural components. Meanwhile, conventional outriggers are difficult to repair, owing to the local buckling-induced severe deterioration and damage. To overcome these problems, this study proposes a novel sacrificial-energy dissipation outrigger (SEDO) to improve the seismic resilience of tall buildings. The chords of SEDO are made of high-strength steel and remain elastic. The inclined braces of the SEDO are composed of a sacrificial part and an energy-dissipating part. Therefore, the SEDO remains elastic under design-based earthquakes (DBEs) and dissipates inelastic energy under MCEs. Moreover, the detailing of this novel SEDO is proposed on the basis of experimental studies. The optimal strength ratio between the sacrificial part and the energy-dissipating part is determined in the range of 6:4 to 4:6 on the basis of nonlinear time history analyses (THAs) and parametric studies. Afterwards, the SEDOs are used in an actual tall building to verify their seismic performances through nonlinear THAs. The results indicate the proposed SEDO is able to protect other structural components and effectively improve the seismic resilience of tall buildings.     

卵形消化池-桩-土相互作用地震反应分析

本文对卵形消化池-桩-土相互作用进行地震反应分析。从分枝模态——二步分析法的基本概念入手,将卵形消化池简化为振动特性和实际结构相同的简化结构,求得上、下部结构之间的耦合项,将耦合项和地震动一起组成修正地震动,以此作为刚性地基上卵形消化池地震反应分析的地震输入,从而求得考虑相互作用影响的卵形消化池地震反应。计算结果表明,在罕遇地震作用下,虽然部分土体进入塑性,池体仍处于弹性工作阶段,并且考虑相互作用影响后得到的卵形消化池地震反应,无论是池体位移还是池壁内力均要小于不考虑相互作用的。本文为解决复杂的卵形消化池-桩-土相互作用问题提供了一种较为实用的分析方法。     

基坑排桩对建筑抗震性的影响分析

以往对建筑抗震性影响因素的研究仅限于施工材料、技术手段等外部条件,忽略了基坑土体安全系数、基坑状态对建筑抗震性的影响,一定程度上削弱了建筑的抗震性能。本文从基坑排桩角度对建筑抗震性的影响展开分析,通过有限元强度折减法获取土体的安全系数与基坑状态的判断标准,在该标准下基于土体安全系数采用有限元强度折减法计算公式,获取各个土层计算参数。基于该参数使用ABAQUS有限元软件构建基坑排桩有限元分析模型(土体和桩体分别采用莫尔-库仑弹塑性模型和二维弹性模型)。实验采用所提分析方法,从基坑排桩排距、刚度两方面对建筑抗震性能进行分析。实验结果表明,当基坑排桩排距进行适当取值时,建筑抗震性越好;双排桩的刚度越大,建筑抗震性越好,且随着刚度的增加建筑抗震性能趋于平稳。     

2D numerical investigation of segmental tunnel lining under seismic loading

Segmental tunnel linings are now often used for seismic areas. However, the influence of segment joints on the segmental lining behavior under seismic loading has not been thoroughly considered in the literature. This paper presents a numerical study, which has been performed under seismic circumstance, to investigate the factors that affect segmental tunnel lining behavior. Analyses have been carried out using a two-dimensional finite difference element model. The proposed model allows studying the effect of the rotational joint stiffness, radial stiffness and the axial stiffness of the longitudinal joints. The numerical results show that a segmental lining can perform better than a continuous lining during earthquake. It has been seen that the influence of the joint distribution, the joint rotational stiffness, the joint axial stiffness, Young׳s modulus of the ground surrounding the tunnel, the lateral earth pressure factor and the maximum shear strain should not be neglected. Some important differences of the segmental tunnel lining behavior under static and seismic conditions have been highlighted.     

Dynamic analysis of 3-D flexible embedded foundations by a frequency domain BEM-FEM

A study on the dynamic response of three-dimensional flexible foundations of arbitrary shape, embedded in a homogenous, isotropic and linear elastic half-space is presented. Both massive and massless foundations are considered. The soil-foundation system is subjected to externally applied forces, and/or to obliquely incident seismic waves. The numerical method employed is a combination of the frequency domain Boundary Element Method, which is used to simulate the elastic soil medium, and the Finite Element Method, on the basis of which the stiffness matrix of the foundation is obtained. The foundation and soil media are combined by enforcing compatibility and equilibrium conditions at their common interface. Both relaxed and completely bonded boundary conditions are considered. The accuracy of the proposed methodology is partially verified through comparison studies with results reported in the literature for rigid embedded foundations.     

Assessment of seismic amplification factor of excavation with support system

Retaining walls have been used in many construction projects such as for road and inclined surfaces protection. The damage caused by an earthquake depends on the fundamental frequency, amplitude and the duration of the seismic motion. These parameters strongly depend on the seismic properties of the layers that are near the surface. In the study of retaining walls, in addition to the influence of soil, the influence of topography is also important. In the present study, site response analysis is performed by using finite element software PLAXIS to obtain the effect of various factors such as embedded length of the sheet pile, underground water table, length and angle of the nail, shear wave velocity of soil on site effect and dynamic response. Moreover, for better understanding of the effect of the above parameters, the stability analysis was performed by using shear reduction method. The results show that an increase in the embedded length of the sheet pile and the length of nailing causes an increase in the amplification factor. Moreover, for shear-wave velocity in the range of 200-600 m/s, the amplification factor increases with increase of the shear-wave velocity due to the decrease of nonlinear behavior.     

Dynamic-stiffness matrix of soil by the boundary-element method: Embedded foundation

Green's influence functions are derived for a linearly distributed load acting on part of a layered elastic halfplane on a line which is inclined to the horizontal. Using these Green's functions as fundamental solutions in the boundary-element method, the dynamic-stiffness matrices of the unbounded soil with excavation, of the excavated part and of the free field are calculated. The indirect boundary-element method using distributed loads and no offset leads to more accurate results than the weighted-residual technique and the direct boundary-element method. At the natural frequencies of the undamped excavated part built-in along the structure-soil interface, the spring coefficients associated with the dynamic-stiffness matrices of the excavated part and of the free field will become infinite. If the dynamic-stiffness matrix of the soil with excavation is calculated as the difference of that of the free field and that of the excavated part, the difference of two large numbers will arise in the vicinity of these frequencies. A consistent discretization must then be used. In particular, the dynamic-stiffness matrix of the embedded part cannot be determined by the finite-element method in this case. A parametric study is performed for the dynamic-stiffness matrix of the free field for a rectangular foundation embedded in a halfplane and in a layer built-in at its base; the aspect ratio and the damping of the soil are varied.     

Dynamic response of a piecewise circular tunnel embedded in a poroelastic medium

Recently, considerable efforts have been devoted to evaluation of seismic dynamic response of a circular tunnel. Conventional approaches have considered integral liners embedded in an elastic medium. In this study, we re-examine the problem with piecewise liners embedded in a porous medium. Surrounding saturated porous medium of tunnels is described by Biot's poroelastic theory, while the liner pieces and the connecting joints are treated as curved beams and characterized by curved beam theories. The scattered wave field in the porous medium is obtained by the wave function expansion method. The differential equations governing the vibration of a curved beam is discretized by the General Differential Quadrature (GDQ) method. The domain decomposition method is used to establish the global discrete dynamic equations for the piecewise tunnel. The surrounding soil and the tunnel are coupled together via the stress and the displacement continuation conditions which are implemented by the boundary collocation method. Numerical results demonstrate that the stiffness difference between the liner piece and the connecting joints has a considerable influence on the internal forces of the liner piece.     

Study of the seismic performance of hybrid A-frame micropile/MSE (mechanically stabilized earth) wall

The Hybrid A-Frame Micropile/MSE(mechanically stabilized earth) Wall suitable for mountain roadways is put forward in this study: a pair of vertical and inclined micropiles goes through the backfill region of a highway MSE Wall from the road surface and are then anchored into the foundation. The pile cap and grade beam are placed on the pile tops, and then a road barrier is connected to the grade beam by connecting pieces. The MSE wall's global stability, local stability and impact resistance of the road barrier can be enhanced simultaneously by this design. In order to validate the serviceability of the hybrid A-frame micropile/MSE wall and the reliability of the numerical method, scale model tests and a corresponding numerical simulation were conducted. Then, the seismic performance of the MSE walls before and after reinforcement with micropiles was studied comparatively through numerical methods. The results indicate that the hybrid A-frame micropile/MSE wall can effectively control earthquake-induced deformation, differential settlement at the road surface, bearing pressure on the bottom and acceleration by means of a rigid-soft combination of micropiles and MSE. The accumulated displacement under earthquakes with amplitude of 0.1-0.5g is reduced by 36.3%-46.5%, and the acceleration amplification factor on the top of the wall is reduced by 13.4%, 15.7% and 19.3% based on 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5g input earthquake loading, respectively.In addition, the earthquake-induced failure mode of the MSE wall in steep terrain is the sliding of the MSE region along the backslope, while the micropiles effectively control the sliding trend. The maximum earthquake-induced pile bending moment is in the interface between MSE and slope foundation, so it is necessary to strengthen the reinforcement of the pile body in the interface. Hence, it is proven that the hybrid A-frame micropile/MSE wall system has good seismic performance.     

Seismic active earth pressure of cohesive-frictional soil on retaining wall based on a slice analysis method

The M–O (Mononobe–Okabe) theory is used as a standard method to determine the seismic earth pressure. However, the M–O theory does not consider the influence of soil cohesion, and it cannot determine the nonlinear distribution of the seismic earth pressure. This paper presents a general solution for the nonlinear distribution of the seismic active earth pressure of cohesive-frictional soil using the slice analysis method. A new method is proposed to determine the critical failure angle of the backfill wedge under complex conditions, and an iterative calculation method is presented to determine the tension crack depth of the seismic active earth pressure. The considered parameters in the proposed method include the horizontal and vertical seismic coefficients, wall inclination angle, backfill inclination angle, soil friction angle, wall friction angle, soil cohesion, wall adhesion and uniform surcharge. The classical methods of the M–O and Rankine theories can be regarded as special cases of the proposed method. Furthermore, the proposed method is compared with the test results and previously existing solutions to validate the correctness of the results. Additionally, the parameters׳ effect on the critical failure angle, the resultant force, the application-point position, the tension crack depth and the nonlinear distribution of seismic active earth pressure are studied in graphical form.     

双向地震作用下液化水平和倾斜场地-桩基-桥梁结构地震反应的差异研究

根据已经完成的液化侧向扩展场地-群桩基础-上部结构体系大型振动台试验,在有限元软件OpenSees中建立了可液化倾斜场地振动台试验的有限元模型。通过与试验结果对比,验证了数值模型的可靠性。基于此,建立了典型水平和倾斜液化场地-桩基-桥梁结构体系的数值模型,讨论了双向地震作用下水平和倾斜场地体系地震响应的差异,结果表明:相比水平场地,倾斜场地超孔隙水压力在峰值阶段波动幅度更大,土体的侧向位移增加明显,尤其是在饱和砂土中部位置;倾斜场地中桩基础的破坏程度更大,可液化层中部桩基曲率最大可增大约13倍,桩身水平位移显著增加;而水平场地桥墩曲率比倾斜场地桥墩曲率大,建议在液化场地桩基设计中应考虑场地倾斜带来的影响。      

Kinematic interaction factors of deep foundations with inclined piles

The beneficial or detrimental role of battered piles on the dynamic response of piled foundations has not been yet fully elucidated. In order to shed more light on this aspect, kinematic interaction factors of deep foundations with inclined piles, are provided for single‐battered piles, as well as for 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 groups of piles subjected to vertically incident plane shear S waves. Piles are modelled as linear‐elastic Bernoulli beams, whereas soil is assumed to be a linear, isotropic, homogeneous viscoelastic half‐space. Different pile group configurations, pile‐soil stiffness ratios, and rake angles are considered. The relevance and main trends observed in the influence of the rake angle on the kinematic interaction factors of the analysed foundations are inferred from the presented results. An important dependence of the kinematic interaction factors on the rake angle is observed together with the existence of an inclination angle at which cap rotation and excitation become out of phase in the low‐to‐mid frequency range. The existence of a small batter angle that provides minimum cap rotation is also shown. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Soil pressure and pore pressure for seismic design of tunnels revisited: considering water-saturated,poroelastic half-space

This paper describes a systematic study on the fundamental features of seismic soil pressure on underground tunnels, in terms of its magnitude and distribution, and further identifi es the dominant factors that signifi cantly infl uence the seismic soil pressure. A tunnel embedded in water-saturated poroelastic half-space is considered, with a large variety of model and excitation parameters. The primary features of both the total soil pressure and the pore pressure are investigated. Taking a circular tunnel as an example, the results are presented using a fi nite element-indirect boundary element(FE-IBE) method, which can account for dynamic soil-tunnel interaction and solid frame-pore water coupling. The effects of tunnel stiffness, tunnel buried depth and input motions on the seismic soil pressure and pore pressure are also examined. It is shown that the most crucial factors that dominate the magnitude and distribution of the soil pressure are the tunnel stiffness and dynamic soil-tunnel interaction. Moreover, the solid frame-pore water coupling has a prominent infl uence on the magnitude of the pore pressure. The fi ndings are benefi cial to obtain insight into the seismic soil pressure on underground tunnels, thus facilitating more accurate estimation of the seismic soil pressure.     

Self-centering seismic retrofit scheme for reinforced concrete frame structures: SDOF system study

This paper presents the results of a parametric study of self-centering seismic retrofit schemes for reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings. The self-centering retrofit system features flag-shaped hysteresis and minimal residual deformation. For comparison purpose,an alternate seismic retrofit scheme that uses a bilinear-hysteresis retrofit system such as buckling-restrained braces (BRB) is also considered in this paper. The parametric study was carried out in a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system framework since a multi-story building structure may be idealized as an equivalent SDOF system and investigation of the performance of this equivalent SDOF system can provide insight into the seismic response of the multi-story building. A peak-oriented hysteresis model which can consider the strength and stiffness degradation is used to describe the hysteretic behavior of RC structures. The parametric study involves two key parameters -the strength ratio and elastic stiffness ratio between the seismic retrofit system and the original RC frame. An ensemble of 172 earthquake ground motion records scaled to the design basis earthquake in California with a probability of exceedance of 10% in 50 years was constructed for the simulation-based parametric study. The effectiveness of the two seismic retrofit schemes considered in this study is evaluated in terms of peak displacement ratio,peak acceleration ratio,energy dissipation demand ratio and residual displacement ratio between the SDOF systems with and without retrofit. It is found from this parametric study that RC structures retrofitted with the self-centering retrofit scheme (SCRS) can achieve a seismic performance level comparable to the bilinear-hysteresis retrofit scheme (BHRS) in terms of peak displacement and energy dissipation demand ratio while having negligible residual displacement after earthquake.     

Dynamic response of vertically excited liquid storage tanks considering liquid-soil interaction

The paper presents a dynamic response analysis of vertically excited liquid storage tanks including both liquid-tank and liquid-soil interaction. The system considered is a thin-walled, elastic cylindrical shell entirely filled with an incompressible and inviscid fluid, resting on a flexible foundation over an elastic halfspace with frequency dependent stiffness and damping parameters. The problem is treated analytically by the generalized-coordinate approach and then solved numerically using the complex frequency response analysis. For one special tank, natural frequencies and equivalent damping ratios are evaluated and compared with those corresponding to a rigid ground. The maximum dynamic pressure is calculated using the response spectra of the 1976 Friuli earthquake. A parameter study is carried out to show the great influence of variable soil stiffness upon the damping ratio of the shell-liquid-soil system.     

Kinematic internal forces in deep foundations with inclined piles

This paper presents a parametric study that looks into the influence of pile rake angle on the kinematic internal forces of deep foundations with inclined piles. Envelopes of maximum kinematic bending moments, shear forces and axial loads are presented along single inclined piles and 2 × 2 symmetrical square pile groups with inclined elements subjected to an earthquake generated by vertically incident shear waves. Inclination angles from 0° to 30° are considered, and three different pile–soil stiffness ratios are studied. These results are obtained through a frequency–domain analysis using a boundary element–finite element code in which the soil is modelled by the boundary element method as a homogeneous, viscoelastic, unbounded region, and the piles are modelled by finite elements as Euler–Bernoulli beams. The rotational kinematic response of the pile foundations is shown to be a key factor on the evolution of the kinematic internal forces along the foundations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.