Damage sequence and safety margin assessment of expansion joints by shake table testing

The performance of nonstructural components has attracted attention, and previous large earthquakes have resulted in widespread damage to expansion joints. In contrast to the main structural components, for which ductility beyond the design tolerance is ensured, the safety margin of nonstructural components classified as the product of mechanical engineering, such as expansion joints, is uncertain. This paper investigates the damage sequence and safety margin of expansion joints through shake table testing. The expansion joints were installed to connect 2 rigid steel frames with short and long natural periods. Four commonly used types, high-performance and standard-performance floor and wall expansion joints, were tested. Seven damage patterns of the 4 expansion joints were observed, and most of the damage patterns were considered displacement dependent. The damage mechanisms and relative displacements at the moment of damage were identified by using strain gauges attached near collision and damage locations. The high-performance expansion joints showed only minor damage beyond the design motion range, whereas the standard-performance expansion joints exhibited minor damage below the design motion range and failure at the design motion range or slightly beyond. For each damage state, repair information was obtained through a questionnaire to an expansion joint manufacturer, and the sum of the initial cost and repair cost for high-performance and standard-performance expansion joints was compared. The results will be useful for the selection of expansion joints in the design process.     

Required separation distance between decks and at abutments of a bridge crossing a canyon site to avoid seismic pounding

Major earthquakes in the past indicated that pounding between bridge decks may result in significant structural damage or even girder unseating. With conventional expansion joints, it is impossible to completely avoid seismic pounding between bridge decks, because the gap size at expansion joints is usually not big enough in order to ensure smooth traffic flow. With a new development of modular expansion joint (MEJ), which allows a large joint movement and at the same time without impeding the smoothness of traffic flow, completely precluding pounding between adjacent bridge decks becomes possible. This paper investigates the minimum total gap that a MEJ must have to avoid pounding at the abutments and between bridge decks. The considered spatial ground excitations are modelled by a filtered Tajimi‐Kanai power spectral density function and an empirical coherency loss function. Site amplification effect is included by a transfer function derived from the one‐dimensional wave propagation theory. Stochastic response equations of the adjacent bridge decks are formulated. The effects of ground motion spatial variations, dynamic characteristics of the bridge and the depth and stiffness of local soil on the required separation distance are analysed. Soil–structure interaction effect is not included in this study. The bridge response behaviour is assumed to be linear elastic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

印度锡金邦6.8级地震中国西藏地区民房震害分析.

2011年9月18日印度锡金邦发生6.8级地震,对我国西藏地区造成较大人员伤亡与民房破坏.本文在现场地震烈度调查和地震损失评估基础上,对灾区民房震害进行了分析.给出了灾区民房的震害特点、抗震设防中存在的问题和对策建议.提出了西藏民居抗震设计的基本原则,强调了民居抗震中的概念设计.根据相应的抗震措施和原则,在不增加太多费用的情况下可以大幅提高房屋的抗震能力,减少地震人员伤亡和损失,促进西藏地区经济的和谐发展.     

Seismic resilience of retrofitted RC buildings

Existing buildings can be at a greater seismic risk due to non-conformance to current design codes and may require structural retrofitting to improve building performance. The performance of buildings is measured in terms of immediate consequences due to direct damage, but the continuing impacts related to recovery are not considered in seismic retrofit assessment. This paper introduces a framework of retrofit selection based on the seismic resilience of deficient buildings retrofitted with the conventional mitigation approaches. The assembly-based methodology is considered for the seismic resilience assessment by compiling a nonlinear numerical model and a building performance model. The collapse fragility is developed from the capacity curve, and the resulting social, economic, and environmental consequences are determined. The seismic resilience of a building is assessed by developing a downtime assessment methodology incorporating sequence of repairs, impeding factors, and utility availability. Five functionality states are developed for the building functionality given investigated time interval, and a functionality curve for each retrofit is determined. It is concluded that seismic resilience can be used as a performance indicator to assess the continuing impacts of a hazard for the retrofit selection.     

Seismic safety of low ductility structures used in Spain

The most important aspects of the design, seismic damage evaluation and safety assessment of structures with low ductility like waffle slabs buildings or flat beams framed buildings are examined in this work. These reinforced concrete structural typologies are the most used in Spain for new buildings but many seismic codes do not recommend them in seismic areas. Their expected seismic performance and safety are evaluated herein by means of incremental non linear structural analysis (pushover analysis) and incremental dynamic analysis which provides capacity curves allowing evaluating their seismic behavior. The seismic hazard is described by means of the reduced 5% damped elastic response spectrum of the Spanish seismic design code. The most important results of the study are the fragility curves calculated for the mentioned building types, which allow obtaining the probability of different damage states of the structures as well as damage probability matrices. The results, which show high vulnerability of the studied low ductility building classes, are compared with those corresponding to ductile framed structures.     

Seismic vulnerability of reinforced concrete buildings with discontinuity in columns

Irregular reinforced concrete (RC) buildings constitute a significant portion of the existing housing stock. A common type of irregularity is in the form of discontinuity in the vertical framing elements, which can exacerbate their seismic vulnerability. The design guidelines available in seismic design codes essentially cater to only regular buildings, and the safety of such buildings, even when the other guidelines of the codes are followed, is doubtful. This article evaluates the vulnerability of RC frame buildings with discontinuity in columns designed for modern seismic codes, in the form of seismic collapse capacity, collapse resistance against maximum earthquake demand level, and failure mechanism. The adequacy and limitations of the provisions of the seismic design codes are evaluated for such buildings. Analysis results show that the sequential analysis of buildings considering the construction staged effects, considerably affects the design and hence the collapse failure mechanism of even low- and mid-rise buildings. The results also underline the importance of strong column–weak beam design in the seismic performance of the floating column buildings. The vertical component of ground motion is also observed to be relatively more crucial in floating column buildings.     

基于“投资—效益”准则的结构全寿命总费用模型

作为基于结构性能抗震设计的重要原则,“投资—效益”准则反映了抗震设计思想由只注重结构安全到综合考虑技术、经济、社会等诸多因素影响的转变,而结构性能水平和抗震性能目标是实现这一准则的前提和基础.采用五级结构性能水平细化现行规范给出的三水准设防,以层间位移角为定量指标,建立了结构性能水平与层间位移角限值之间一一对应的关系.提出抗震性能目标优化决策,根据最优设防烈度并引入地震危险性分析,建立了基于“投资—效益”准则的结构全寿命总费用模型.该模型规避了直接求解体系可靠度的复杂过程,将问题转化为求解结构的失效概率.其优点在于既能考虑结构的初始造价,又充分根据结构性能失效的特点考虑结构在各级性能水平下的损失期望,全面注重了结构性能、安全及经济等条件,体现了基于性能的抗震设计理念.     

多层住宅砖房的地震易损性分析

本文采用概率方法借助于拉丁超立方采样技术和非线性地震反应过程分析对多层住宅砖房的地震易损性进行分析。其分析样本是根据多层住宅砖房目前常用设计参数值的范围选定参数的代表值，并由这些代表值构成的；分析中考虑了地震荷载、结构反应和结构承载力的不确定性。易损性曲线分别对五个不同结构破坏程度的极限状态给出。     

A probabilistic performance‐based approach for mitigating the seismic pounding risk between adjacent buildings

Existing design procedures for determining the separation distance between adjacent buildings subjected to seismic pounding risk are based on approximations of the buildings' peak relative displacement. These procedures are characterized by unknown safety levels and thus are not suitable for use within a performance‐based earthquake engineering framework. This paper introduces an innovative reliability‐based methodology for the design of the separation distance between adjacent buildings. The proposed methodology, which is naturally integrated into modern performance‐based design procedures, provides the value of the separation distance corresponding to a target probability of pounding during the design life of the buildings. It recasts the inverse reliability problem of the determination of the design separation distance as a zero‐finding problem and involves the use of analytical techniques in order to evaluate the statistics of the dynamic response of the buildings. Both uncertainty in the seismic intensity and record‐to‐record variability are taken into account. The proposed methodology is applied to several different buildings modeled as linear elastic single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) and multi‐degree‐of‐freedom (MDOF) systems, as well as SDOF nonlinear hysteretic systems. The design separation distances obtained are compared with the corresponding estimates that are based on several response combination rules suggested in the seismic design codes and in the literature. In contrast to current seismic code design procedures, the newly proposed methodology provides consistent safety levels for different building properties and different seismic hazard conditions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generation of fragility curves for Turkish masonry buildings considering in‐plane failure modes

This study focuses on the seismic safety evaluation of masonry buildings in Turkey for in‐plane failure modes using fragility curves. Masonry buildings are classified and a set of fragility curves are generated for each class. The major structural parameters in the classification of masonry buildings are considered as the number of stories, load‐bearing wall material, regularity in plan and the arrangement of walls (required length, openings in walls, etc.), in accordance with the observations from previous earthquakes and field databases. The fragility curves are generated by using time history (for demand) and pushover (for capacity) analyses. From the generated sets of fragility curves, it is observed that the damage state probabilities are significantly influenced from the number of stories and wall material strength. In the second stage of the study, the generated fragility curves are employed to estimate the damage of masonry buildings in Dinar after the 1995 earthquake. The estimated damage by fragility information is compared with the inspected visual damage as assessed from the Damage Evaluation Form. For the quantification of fragility‐based damage, a single‐valued index, named as ‘vulnerability score’ (VS), is proposed. There seems to be a fair agreement between the two damage measures. In addition to this, decisions regarding the repair or demolition of masonry buildings in Dinar due to visual damage inspection are on comparable grounds with the relative measure obtained from VS of the same buildings. Hence, the fragility‐based procedure can provide an alternative for the seismic safety evaluation of masonry buildings in Turkey. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Damage‐based seismic planar pounding analysis of adjacent symmetric buildings considering inelastic structure–soil–structure interaction

In cities and urban areas, building structures located at close proximities inevitably interact under dynamic loading by direct pounding and indirectly through the underlying soil. Majority of the previous adjacent building pounding studies that have taken the structure–soil–structure interaction (SSSI) problem into account have used simple lumped mass–spring–dashpot models under plane strain conditions. In this research, the problem of SSSI‐included pounding problem of two adjacent symmetric in plan buildings resting on a soft soil profile excited by uniaxial earthquake loadings is investigated. To this end, a series of SSSI models considering one‐directional nonlinear impact elements between adjacent co‐planar stories and using a method for direct finite element modeling of 3D inelastic underlying soil volume has been developed to accurately study the problem. An advanced inelastic structural behavior parameter, the seismic damage index, has been considered in this study as the key nonlinear structural response of adjacent buildings. Based on the results of SSSI and fixed base case analyses presented herein, two main problems are investigated, namely, the minimum building separation distance for pounding prevention and seismic pounding effects on structural damage in adjacent buildings. The final results show that at least three times, the International Building Code 2009 minimum distance for building separation recommended value is required as a clear distance for adjacent symmetric buildings to prevent the occurrence of seismic pounding. At the International Building Code‐recommended distance, adjacent buildings experienced severe seismic pounding and therefore significant variations in storey shear forces and damage indices. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance-based seismic design of nonstructural building components:The next frontier of earthquake engineering

With the development and implementation of performance-based earthquake engineering,harmonization of performance levels between structural and nonstructural components becomes vital. Even if the structural components of a building achieve a continuous or immediate occupancy performance level after a seismic event,failure of architectural,mechanical or electrical components can lower the performance level of the entire building system. This reduction in performance caused by the vulnerability of nonstructural components has been observed during recent earthquakes worldwide. Moreover,nonstructural damage has limited the functionality of critical facilities,such as hospitals,following major seismic events. The investment in nonstructural components and building contents is far greater than that of structural components and framing. Therefore,it is not surprising that in many past earthquakes,losses from damage to nonstructural components have exceeded losses from structural damage. Furthermore,the failure of nonstructural components can become a safety hazard or can hamper the safe movement of occupants evacuating buildings,or of rescue workers entering buildings. In comparison to structural components and systems,there is relatively limited information on the seismic design of nonstructural components. Basic research work in this area has been sparse,and the available codes and guidelines are usually,for the most part,based on past experiences,engineering judgment and intuition,rather than on objective experimental and analytical results. Often,design engineers are forced to start almost from square one after each earthquake event: to observe what went wrong and to try to prevent repetitions. This is a consequence of the empirical nature of current seismic regulations and guidelines for nonstructural components. This review paper summarizes current knowledge on the seismic design and analysis of nonstructural building components,identifying major knowledge gaps that will need to be filled by future research. Furthermore,considering recent trends in earthquake engineering,the paper explores how performance-based seismic design might be conceived for nonstructural components,drawing on recent developments made in the field of seismic design and hinting at the specific considerations required for nonstructural components.     

Performance-based seismic design of nonstructural building components: The next frontier of earthquake engineering

With the development and implementation of performance-based earthquake engineering, harmonization of performance levels between structural and nonstructural components becomes vital. Even if the structural components of a building achieve a continuous or immediate occupancy performance level after a seismic event, failure of architectural, mechanical or electrical components can lower the performance level of the entire building system. This reduction in performance caused by the vulnerability of nonstructural components has been observed during recent earthquakes worldwide. Moreover, nonstructural damage has limited the functionality of critical facilities, such as hospitals, following major seismic events. The investment in nonstructural components and building contents is far greater than that of structural components and framing. Therefore, it is not surprising that in many past earthquakes, losses from damage to nonstructural components have exceeded losses from structural damage. Furthermore, the failure of nonstructural components can become a safety hazard or can hamper the safe movement of occupants evacuating buildings, or of rescue workers entering buildings. In comparison to structural components and systems, there is relatively limited information on the seismic design of nonstructural components. Basic research work in this area has been sparse, and the available codes and guidelines are usually, for the most part, based on past experiences, engineering judgment and intuition, rather than on objective experimental and analytical results. Often, design engineers are forced to start almost from square one after each earthquake event: to observe what went wrong and to try to prevent repetitions. This is a consequence of the empirical nature of current seismic regulations and guidelines for nonstructural components. This review paper summarizes current knowledge on the seismic design and analysis of nonstructural building components, identifying major knowledge gaps that will need to be filled by future research. Furthermore, considering recent trends in earthquake engineering, the paper explores how performance-based seismic design might be conceived for nonstructural components, drawing on recent developments made in the field of seismic design and hinting at the specific considerations required for nonstructural components.     

Design and development of safety evaluation system of buildings on a seismic field based on the network platform

This paper describes a set of on-site earthquake safety evaluation systems for buildings, which were developed based on a network platform. The system embedded into the quantitative research results which were completed in accordance with the provisions from Post-earthquake Field Works, Part 2: Safety Assessment of Buildings, GB18208.2-2001, and was further developed into an easy-to-use software platform. The system is aimed at allowing engineering professionals, civil engineeing technicists or earthquake-affected victims on site to assess damaged buildings through a network after earthquakes. The authors studied the function structure, process design of the safety evaluation module, and hierarchical analysis algorithm module of the system in depth, and developed the general architecture design, development technology and database design of the system. Technologies such as hierarchical architecture design and Java EE were used in the system development, and My SQL5 was adopted in the database development. The result is a complete evaluation process of information collection, safety evaluation, and output of damage and safety degrees, as well as query and statistical analysis of identified buildings. The system can play a positive role in sharing expert post-earthquake experience and promoting safety evaluation of buildings on a seismic field.     

地震状态下高层建筑物安全防护避让距离的估计研究

高层建筑物在地震作用下易出现倒塌状况,严重影响人身安全,因此高层建筑物地震安全防护距离的预测至关重要。设计以基础数据库为核心的高层建筑物地震安全防护距离预测系统,通过高层建筑物基本信息系统采集高层建筑物高度、宽度、结构类型等基本数据信息,并将这些信息存储到震害数据库系统中;地震危害模型分析系统依据数据库系统中存储的这些建筑物基本信息,分析地震危险性后,通过研究地震时高层建筑上部结构水平、底部及顶部先接触地面三种落地状态情况下,计算得到薄弱层和薄弱层上部结构高度的安全防护距离。实验验证在人工地震波作用下,利用该预测系统可有效获取实验小区高层建筑物的安全防护距离界定示意图,且其能够准确分析地震作用下高层建筑物晃动时"飞石"安全距离,以及三种地震波作用下建筑物地震安全防护距离分布规律和主要影响范围,其预测效果好。     

基于全极化Radarsat-2影像的建筑物震害评估

利用震后灾区全极化SAR影像可快速提取建筑物震害信息,为应急救援的快速有效实施提供重要的灾情信息支持。本文建立基于极化散射矩阵的Pauli-Wishart监督极化分类的建筑物震害信息提取和以街区为尺度的震害程度评估方法,包括Pauli分解、Wishart监督分类和遥感震害指数提取,并利用玉树县城区2010年4月14日青海玉树7.1级地震震后全极化Radarsat-2影像,提取了建筑物震害信息。经统计,确定结果总体分类精度达到0.81,Kappa值为0.61,表明本文提取建筑物震害的方法是可行的。     

江苏高邮、宝应MS4.9级地震现场震害调查与破坏原因研究

江苏高邮、宝应Ms4．9级地震在极震区造成了数10间农村民居不同程度和不同方式的破坏,出现人员伤亡。震后对地震灾害现场进行震害调查与破坏原因研究,典型的震害特征包括砖砌体、砖木和砖混结构房屋局部倾倒、墙体贯通开裂、房顶瓦片掀翻和烟囱倒塌等。农村民居遭到破坏的主要因素包括：选址不当、施工质量较差、砂浆强度不够、缺少圈梁和构造柱等。同时,分析了竖向地震作用和鞭梢效应等地震效应,讨论了砖砌体和砖混结构抗震设计的加固方法和改善抗震性能的构造措施等,为农村民居的抗震设防和减轻震害损失等提供参考。     

抗震设防地区评定地震烈度的平均震害指数法

在我国烈度表中提到的房屋指的是未经过抗震设计或加固的单层或数层的砖混和砖木房屋．但是随着我国经济的发展,这类房屋的数量在逐渐减少,能够根据抗震设防房屋的破坏情况进行烈度评定对目前的地震现场工作具有重要意义．本文通过震害矩阵和平均震害指数的关系,尝试利用框架结构和砖混结构的震害矩阵得到设防烈度——震害指数的拟合关系,建立不同抗震设防水准的框架结构和砖混结构的烈度评定标准,并利用近年来9次中国大陆地震的烈度评定结果对该评定标准进行验证．本文评定的结果与这些地震现场评定结果基本一致．本研究结果可作为在我国抗震设防地区利用多种结构形式的建筑物破坏情况进行烈度评定的依据     

Evaluation of a recently proposed record selection and scaling procedure for low‐rise to mid‐rise reinforced concrete buildings and its use for probabilistic risk assessment studies

This paper evaluates a recent record selection and scaling procedure of the authors that can determine the probabilistic structural response of buildings behaving either in the elastic or post‐elastic range. This feature marks a significant strength on the procedure as the probabilistic structural response distribution conveys important information on probability‐based damage assessment. The paper presents case studies that show the utilization of the proposed record selection and scaling procedure as a tool for the estimation of damage states and derivation of site‐specific and region‐specific fragility functions. The method can be used to describe exceedance probabilities of damage limits under a certain target hazard level with known annual exceedance rate (via probabilistic seismic hazard assessment). Thus, the resulting fragility models can relate the seismicity of the region (or a site) with the resulting building performance in a more accurate manner. Under this context, this simple and computationally efficient record selection and scaling procedure can be benefitted significantly by probability‐based risk assessment methods that have started to be considered as indispensable for developing robust earthquake loss models. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

农居地震安全技术网络服务系统的内容和原理.

针对目前农村房屋建造技术不科学,并且人们获取地震安全知识受时间和空间的限制等问题,本文介绍了基于网络环境面向用户的“农居地震安全技术网络服务系统”的建设内容.该系统包含了信息自动筛选、处理分析及信息整编等关键技术,可实现农居建造的抗震设防、场址选择、基础及结构选型的自动组合、合理筛选,为农民工匠、基层技术人员提供农居地震安全方面的初步技术信息.同时,本中还介绍了农居地震安全咨询软件的设计目标、主要内容和功能,重点讨论了系统的关键技术及其特点.