Inelastic buildings with tuned mass dampers under moderate ground motions from distant earthquakes

The effectiveness of tuned mass dampers (TMD) in vibration control of buildings was investigated under moderate ground shaking caused by long‐distance earthquakes with frequency contents resembling the 1985 Mexico City (SCT) or the 1995 Bangkok ground motion. The elastic–perfectly plastic material behaviour was assumed for the main structure, with linear TMDs employed by virtue of their simplicity and robustness. The accumulated hysteretic energy dissipation affected by TMD was examined, and the ratio of the hysteretic energy absorption in the structure with TMD to that without it is proposed to be used, in conjunction with the peak displacement ratio, as a supplementary TMD performance index since it gives an indication of the accumulated damage induced in the inelastic structures. For the ground motions considered, TMD would be effective in reducing the hysteretic energy absorption demand in the critical storeys for buildings in the 1.8–2.8 s range. The consequence is reduction in damage of the buildings which would otherwise suffer heavy damage in the absence of TMD, resulting in economical restorability in the damage control limit state. This is of practical significance in view of the current trend toward performance‐based design. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Incremental dynamic analysis of woodframe buildings

The collapse of wood buildings was one of the main contributors to the heavy death toll and economic losses during the 1995 Hyogo‐ken Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake in Japan. In California, half of the property loss from the 1994 Northridge earthquake was attributed to wood construction. Based on damage observed in recent earthquakes, the seismic vulnerability of existing wood buildings under maximum credible seismic events is uncertain. The main objective of this study is to quantify the seismic collapse fragilities and collapse mechanisms of a two‐story townhouse and three‐story woodframe apartment building through numerical analyses. Three construction quality variants (poor, typical and superior) were considered for each building in order to assess the effects of construction qualities on seismic collapse fragilities. The buildings were also re‐designed according to the 2006 edition of the International Building Code to quantify the seismic fragilities of modern woodframe construction. The results obtained suggest that the construction quality, excitation direction and wall finish materials can influence significantly the collapse fragilities of woodframe buildings. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.