Sharif Digital Repository

Conventional lateral resisting systems can provide sufficient strength and ductility for design based earthquakes, although the considerable residual deformation remaining in the plasticized regions undermines the resiliency of the structures. In order to resolve this problem, various self-centering systems have been proposed and tested in recent years, most of which are specified for new buildings and are not simply suitable for retrofitting applications. Moreover, the available self-centering systems are costly and complex to assemble, which can be considered as a serious barrier for practical application. To address these drawbacks, an innovative Core-Less Self-Centering (CLSC) brace is... 

Abstract Codes require that the span-to-depth ratio of the beams in moment resisting frames (MRF) should be limited to guarantee the development of plastic hinges with a sufficient length at beam ends. This requirement limits the application of MRFs mostly in framed-tube structures. In the current design procedure of steel MRFs, the strength and stiffness design of the structure are coupled often leading to overdesigned structures and foundations. To overcome the abovementioned limits, in this paper a new replaceable shear structural fuse is introduced for MRFs. The fuse is a shear link designed as a sacrificial component by weakening the shear strength of a segment at the middle of the beam... 

Femtocell networks are a common means of offloading in current mobile networks. Game theoretic and learning-based self-organization schemes are known as two viable approaches for interference control in co-existing macro/femtocell networks. Nevertheless, extensions of these schemes to concurrent multi-agent scenarios often face several challenges including high computational complexity, cyclic behaviors, and lack of convergence. This paper addresses such challenges by introducing local games based on a graph representation of the network. The goal of the games is to optimize the aggregate network capacity through power control. Fairness among femtocells and quality of service (QoS) for... 

In this article, the cyclic performance of an innovative precast beam-to-column connection is evaluated experimentally and numerically. Two full-scale beam-column cross-shape interior connection specimens named PF-1 and PF-2 are tested. By adding extra nuts to the connecting bolts, specimen PF-2 behaves in a more shear-dominant pattern and shows less pinching. Comparison of performance of these specimens with the numerical monolithic model in terms of stiffness, strength, ductility and energy dissipation capacity indicates the proposed system can provide conditions close to the monolithic connection. However, to reduce the pinching drawback, a minor modification was made leading to... 

Steel box girders have two webs and two flanges on top that are usually connected with shear connectors to the concrete deck and are also known as tub girders. The end diaphragms of such bridges comprise of a stiffened steel plate welded to the inside of the girder at each end. The diaphragms play a major role in transferring vertical and lateral loads to the bearings and substructure. A review of literature shows that the cyclic behavior of diaphragms under earthquake loading has not been studied previously. This paper uses a nonlinear finite element model to study the behavior of the end diaphragms under gravity and seismic loads. Different bearing device and stiffener configurations have... 

Geotechnical design may be unsafe if the anisotropic behavior of soil is not considered. The behavior of anisotropic materials depends on the principal stresses and their directions. A detailed experimental programme was conducted to study the e ect of stress direction on the monotonic and cyclic behavior of dense sand. A total of 20 undrained tests were performed at a constant mean con ning stress (00m), a constant intermediate principal stress ratio (b = (2 - 3)=(1 -3)), and principal stress directions (). Two ne sands, Babolsar and Toyoura, were selected as the test materials. The isotropically consolidated specimens were prepared by the wet tamping technique. The results showed that the... 

In this article, numerical simulations of cyclic behaviors in light alloys are conducted under isothermal and thermo-mechanical fatigue loadings. For this purpose, an aluminum alloy (A356) which is widely used in cylinder heads and a magnesium alloy (AZ91) which can be applicable in cylinder heads are considered to study their stress-strain hysteresis loops. Two plasticity approaches including the Chaboche's hardening model and the Nagode's spring-slider model are applied to simulate cyclic behaviors. To validate obtained results, strain-controlled fatigue tests are performed under low cycle and thermo-mechanical fatigue loadings. Numerical results demonstrate a good agreement with... 

This paper presents the research works on the cyclic behavior of trapezoidally corrugated as well as unstiffened steel shear walls. A series of experimental studies were carried out on the half-scale, one-story, single-bay steel shear walls with unstiffened and trapezoidally corrugated panels. This experimental study was conducted to compare the stiffness, strength, ductility ratio and energy dissipation capacity of three different steel shear walls: unstiffened, trapezoidally vertical corrugated and trapezoidally horizontal corrugated. Gravity loads were not applied at the top of the walls and horizontal load was applied at the top of each specimen. Loading sequence was applied as... 

In this paper, effects of strain rate and mean strain on the cyclic behavior and the lifetime of aluminum-silicon alloys are investigated under thermo-mechanical and isothermal fatigue loadings. To achieve these goals, low cycle fatigue tests are accomplished at evaluated temperatures under various strain rates (by changing the loading frequency) and different strain ratios (minimum to maximum strain). Thermo-mechanical fatigue experiments are performed in an out-of-phase condition where the temperature varies between 50 and 250 °C. Various heating/cooling rates are taken into account to assess the strain rate effect and different starting temperatures are considered to study the mean strain... 

Recent experiments on metals have shown that all of the stress invariants should be involved in the constitutive description of the material in plasticity. In this paper, a plasticity model for metals is defined for isotropic materials, which is a function of the first stress invariant in addition to the second and the third invariants of the deviatoric stress tensor. For this purpose, the Drucker-Prager yield criterion is extended by addition of a new term containing the second and the third deviatoric stress invariants. Furthermore for estimating the cyclic behavior, new terms are incorporated into the Chaboche's hardening evolution equation. These modifications are applied by adding new... 

In this paper, the evolution of ductile damage and the failure is investigated in the cyclic loading of ductile metals based on the rate-dependent elasto-viscoplastic damage model with the linear and nonlinear isotropic-kinematic hardening rules. The constitutive model is derived by introducing the damage variable, based on the plastic strain behavior, in both the elasto-plasticity and visco-plasticity frameworks. The cyclic behavior is modeled by using the visco-plasticity model since the rate-dependent behavior is observed experimentally for various metal alloys. In order to obtain a more realistic response in the compression zone, the crack closure effect is employed in the stress-strain... 

Slotted bolted connections (SBCs) have been developed and used as an axial friction damper in braced frames since 1980s. To employ the benefits of SBCs in moment resisting frames (MRFs), rotational slotted bolted connections have been developed more recently with limited application in members that flexural behavior is dominated to shear. In this paper, shear slotted bolted connection (SSBC) is introduced as a new type of friction dampers to employ the benefits of SBCs in lateral load resisting systems with predominant shear behavior members that dissipate energy by traditional yielding mechanisms. The SSBC is a modified bolted connection that dissipates energy through friction in which... 

Buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) have been spread widely, especially in high seismic hazard zones due to their excellent energy absorption capacity. BRBs are composed of a main load-carrying steel core restrained with other elements mostly made of concrete and steel casing to preserve it from buckling. Although BRBs provide excellent cyclic behavior, a problem is with their heaviness, which leads to difficulties such as installation and transportation. This study presents a numerical and experimental investigation on a BRB with a new proposed restraining system composed of concrete panels confined with partially carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips to reduce the weight of the... 

The paper deals with an experimental study of the undrained cyclic behavior of a natural coarse sand and gravel deposit located in Tehran, a megacity situated on the continental side of the Alborz Mountain in Iran. Membrane compliance that plays a significant role in inhibiting redistribution of pore pressure and liquefaction in undrained cyclic triaxial tests performed on coarse granular soils is studied in this paper. Currently there is no or little satisfactory method for accounting for this phenomenon for gravelly soils, and thus the non-compliant cyclic loading resistanceof granular soils and the evaluation of the behavior of such material in natural and in situ state are not easily...