Spectral and fragility evaluations of retrofitted structures through strength reduction and enhanced damping

A retrofit procedure for existing buildings called the "weakening and damping technique" (WED) is presented in this paper. Weakening of structures can limit the maximum response accelerations during severe ground motions, but leads to an increase in the displacements or inter-story drifts. Added damping by using viscous dampers, on the other hand, reduces the inter-story drifts and has no significant effect on total accelerations, when structures behave inelastically. The weakening and damping technique addresses the two main causes for both structural and nonstructural damage in structures. The weakening retrofit is particularly suitable for structures that have overstressed components and weak brittle components. In this paper, the advantages of the WeD are verified by nonlinear dynamic analysis and simplified spectral approach that has been modified to fit structures with additional damping devices. A hospital structure located in the San Femando Valley in California is selected as a case study. The results from both analyses show that the retrofit solution is feasible to reduce both structural acceleration and displacement. A sensitivity analysis is also carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the retrofitting method using different combinations of performance thresholds in accelerations and displacements through fragility analysis.     

Vertical dynamic response of pile in a radially heterogeneous soil layer

An analysis of a pile vertical response considering soil inhomogeneity in the radial direction under dynamic loads is presented. The solution technique is based on a three‐dimensional axisymmetric model, which includes the consideration of the vertical displacement of the soil. The soil domain is subdivided into a number of annular vertical zones, and the continuity of the displacements and stresses are imposed at both the interface of pile–soil and the interfaces of adjacent soil zones to establish the dynamic equilibrium equations of the pile–soil interaction. Then, the equations of each soil zone and of the pile are solved one by one to obtain the analytical and semi‐analytical dynamic responses at the top of the pile in the frequency domain and time domain. Parametric studies have been performed to examine the influence of soil parameters' variations in the radial direction caused by the construction effect on the dynamic responses of pile. The results of the studies have been summarized and presented in figures to illustrate the influences of the soil parameters as they change radially. The effect of the radius of the disturbed soil zone caused by construction is also studied in this paper. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subgrid variability of snow water equivalent at operational snow stations in the western USA

The spatial distribution of snow water equivalent (SWE) is a key variable in many regional‐scale land surface models. Currently, the assimilation of point‐scale snow sensor data into these models is commonly performed without consideration of the spatial representativeness of the point data with respect to the model grid‐scale SWE. To improve the understanding of the relationship between point‐scale snow measurements and surrounding areas, we characterized the spatial distribution of snow depth and SWE within 1‐, 4‐ and 16‐km² grids surrounding 15 snow stations (snowpack telemetry and California snow sensors) in California, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon during the 2008 and 2009 snow seasons. More than 30 000 field observations of snowpack properties were used with binary regression tree models to relate SWE at the sensor site to the surrounding area SWE to evaluate the sensor representativeness of larger‐scale conditions. Unlike previous research, we did not find consistent high biases in snow sensor depth values as biases over all sites ranged from 74% overestimates to 77% underestimates. Of the 53 assessments, 27 surveys indicated snow station biases of less than 10% of the surrounding mean observed snow depth. Depth biases were largely dictated by the physiographic relationship between the snow sensor locations and the mean characteristics of the surrounding grid, in particular, elevation, solar radiation index and vegetation density. These scaling relationships may improve snow sensor data assimilation; an example application is illustrated for the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center National Snow Analysis SWE product. The snow sensor bias information indicated that the assimilation of point data into the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center model was often unnecessary and reduced model accuracy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

多种权函数固定临界值与可变临界值抗差估计的比较

抗差估计等价权函数中临界值一般定为常数。若基于学生化分布构造标准化残差,其临界值可由观测自由度以及给定的显著性水平确定。首先对几种权函数进行了分析和比较,然后讨论了各个权函数抗差性与误差显著性水平以及由之确定的临界值的关系。利用模拟数据详细分析和比较了不同的权函数在不同显著性水平下的抗差性,针对不同的权函数给出了合适的显著性水平;并将其与经验确定的常数临界值所对应的抗差估计进行比较,发现这种基于合适的显著性水平下的权函数不仅具有较严格的理论基础,而且计算也是行之有效的。     

Characterizing and quantifying earthquake-induced site nonlinearity

This study proposes a recording-based approach to characterize and quantify earthquake-induced site nonlinearity, exemplified as soil nonlinearity and/or liquefaction. Alternative to Fourier spectral analysis (FSA), the paper introduces time–frequency analysis of earthquake ground motion recordings with the aid of so-called Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT), and offers justification for the HHT in addressing the nonlinear features shown in the recordings. With the use of the 2001 Nisqually earthquake recordings, this study shows that the proposed approach is effective in characterizing site nonlinearity and quantifying the influences in seismic ground responses. Major results from this study are listed below.

1. HHT-based site amplification is defined as the ratio of marginal Hilbert amplitude spectra, similar to the Fourier-based one that is the ratio of Fourier amplitude spectra. The HHT-based site amplification can be used in effectively quantifying site nonlinearity in terms of frequency downshift in the low-frequency range and amplification-reduction factor in intermediate-frequency range in comparison with the Fourier-based one.

2. Instantaneous damping, and Hilbert and marginal Hilbert damping spectra are defined in ways similar to instantaneous frequency, and Hilbert and marginal Hilbert amplitude spectra, respectively. Consequently, the HHT-based site damping is found as the difference of marginal Hilbert damping spectra, which can be used as an alternative, complementary index to measure the influences of site nonlinearity in seismic ground responses.

港口内靠码头系泊船运动的计算

本文以英国南海岸处Ｓｈｏｒｅｈａｍ港内系泊船为例，研究了港口内靠码头系泊船运动的数值计算问题。该船的实船实验和模型实验已经完成，为验证本文计算结果提供了依据。运动方程在时域内求解。在计算船体脉冲响应函数时，引入了船体阻尼系数在频率很低时的渐近表达式和一迭代算法。分析了港内共振波浪和其对船体的作用力。讨论了靠码头系泊船运动的非线性特征。计算结果与实验结果符合很好。     

巷道超前探测散射成像处理技术

国内外在隧道施工过程中已开始应用反射波法超前探测前方小构造,如断层、陷落柱.由于前方的断层面、陷落柱界面起伏不平,所以接收到的反射波能量较弱,难以精确成像,而基了惠更斯原理的散射成像方法能充分利用地震信号的全波场信息,具有较好的偏移成像效果,散射成像为巷道超前探测提供了一种可行的成像方法.笔者通过建立巷道超前探测模型,分析了散射成像处理技术的效果,验证了散射成像方法应用于巷道超前探测的可行性.     

Equivalent void ratio controlling the mechanical properties of cementitious material-clay mixtures with high water content

Abstract

This research develops a parameter defined as the equivalent void ratio, e?_st, which is able to accurately describe the dependence of the mechanical properties of cementitious material-clay mixtures on the influencing parameters, i.e., the mixing proportion, curing time, and initial state of the mixture, for different types of cementitious materials based on the results of unconfined compression, oedometer, and triaxial tests. Besides Portland cement, cementitious materials, such as fly ash and rice husk ash, are considered supplementary cement with different levels of efficiency. This equivalent cementitious material concept is then adapted for parameter development in conjunction with the effective void ratio proposed from our previous study. The developed single parameter, e?_st, can assess the mechanical properties of cementitious material-clay mixtures with different types of cementitious materials and under different test conditions.     

结构附加粘滞阻尼器的抗震设计

本文结合抗震设计规范反应谱,给出了一个附加非线性流体粘滞阻尼器结构的抗震设计方法。研究了非线性阻尼器的力学特性,引入了非线性流体阻尼器的等效线性阻尼比,给出了计算最大加速度时刻附加非线性流体阻尼器结构反应的荷载组合系数,提出了按阻尼力的水平力分量与楼层剪力成正比的原则分配阻尼器阻尼系数的方法。同时给出了基于抗震规范设计反应谱附加非线性阻尼器结构的设计流程,通过一个算例说明了使用该方法设计附加非线性粘滞阻尼器结构的全过程。算例分析表明,这种设计方法适合于手算,便于设计人员掌握,在初步设计阶段可以快速、有效地设计满足给定性能水平的附加非线性流体阻尼器体系。