Sharif Digital Repository

Iran plateau is situated over the Alpide-Himalaya earthquake belt. Tectonic studies indicate that this plateau has a very high density of active and recent faults; as a result, Iran is at risk of damaging earthquakes. Experience of past severe earthquakes shows previous designed structures do not have enough strength instead of real earthquake forces, therefore vulnerability study of existing structures and give a technical and economical retrofitting plan of them is required. Conventional methods of seismic rehabilitation for example using concrete shear walls or steel braces are not suitable for some buildings. Nowadays, passive control systems have been successfully used for reducing the... 

This thesis contains experimental studies on mechanical properties of adobe and mud material and investigating seismic performance of a conventional adobe house using shake table tests. Mechanical properties of adobe and mud material were studied experimentally based on ASTM and BS standard tests. These experiments were designed to evaluate compressive strength of adobe sun-dried blocks and mud mortar cubes. Besides, shear behavior and tensile bond strength of adobe assemblages were under consideration and shear tests were done on adobe panels. As next part of the research, several shaking table tests were conducted on a dome-roof adobe house as a conventional representative of arch-roof... 

In recent years, composite systems comprised of reinforced concrete columns and steel beams, have taken consideration. This system took its own advantages both from steel and concrete systems. Joints of this system categorized into through-beam-type and through-column-type. In this research, after reviewing past studies, two kinds of the joints were modeled in ABAQUS finite element program and seismic performance of these two joints were evaluated. These two selected joints were tested by Chin-Tun Chen and Cheng-Chih Chen ( ) and also Hiroshi Kuramoto and Isao Nishiyama ( ). After verifying the finite element model with the experimental studies, a parametric study were conducted on the steel... 

In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, connections in the resistant steel moment frames sustained unexpected brittle fractures in the beam to column connection region. One of the strategies to decrease the vulnerability of connections is reducing the beam section in a region, near the column face. Because to reach the plastic hinge in this region and decrease deformation in other region, like beam end, panel zone and columns. Reducing in beam section is caused some differences in seismic performance of steel frame. Although extensive numerical and experimental studies have conducted on this type of connection but limited studies have performed on the moment frame with reduced beam section... 

The present parametric study discusses the effective factors on seismic performance of spherical RC domes. For this perpose, a series of domes with different spans, a variety of contact angles (the angle between the bottom of the sphere and the center of the sphere), openings with different areas and various support condition are studied. Then the value of response modification factor and it's components is determined to take into account the effect of each component. The results obtained indicated that the response modification factor increases as the contact angle enhances. However, the span of domes insignificantly affects the value of response modification factor.also analysis on domes... 

Cable-stayed bridges are the most economical solution for spans ranging from about 200 to 1000 meters. They have become more popular in recent decades due to their efficiency and appearance. The need to understand their seismic beahvior is apparent and any improvement can be useful. The main purpose of this study is to determine the effect of using three lateral cable arrangement groups namely, cross system, pulley system and spatial lateral cable system with two transversally inclined cable planes on seismic performance of cable-stayed bridges. In this research, the seismic consequences of these arrangements with interactions of key parameters like, the main span length and deck to pylon... 

This research studies behavior and implementing of telescopic lead shear damper in structures. Telescopic lead shear damper (TLSD) is a type of metallic yielding dampers that can dissipated energy with usage of shear yielding of lead. TLSD is made from behind act of two lead shear damper (LSD) like a telescope. Lead shear damper composed of two coaxial steel pipes where their interfacial gap is filled with pure lead. The interface of lead and steel pipes are roughened in a threaded form to guarantee the no-slip condition across the interface. Due to stable and fat force displacement hysteresis loops of TLSD, this device can be used in structures subjected to wind, seismic, and other dynamic... 

Settlement and tilt of structures due to liquefaction of subsoil layers is a major cause of damage during earthquake. One of the main approaches to reduce terrible effects of liquefaction on shallow foundations is ground improvement. Among the variety of ground improvement methods, the densification-based methods have been more paid attention for liquefaction mitigation. For liquefaction hazard mitigation using densification methods, three basic values should be determined i.e. depth, lateral extent, and degree of improvement (percent increase in Dr). In the current design practice, the need for ground improvement is usually decided based on the semi-empirical methods for assessment of... 

In this thesis the performance of anew energy dissipative device, slit steel damper (SSD) is investigated. The slit steel damper is manufactured with I-shaped, wide flange H-shaped profiles with a number of slits cut from the web. The device is installed between beam and chevron brace and fastened by four bolts on each side, which enables the replacement of the device due to strong earthquake.A numerical study is conducted to studythe nonlinear behavior of the SSD systems by using a nonlinear FE program. It is found that the numerical modeling results have a good agreement with the existing test results.In the next step a parametric study is performed to study the effects of the number of... 

Using shear walls as an earthquake resistant system in reinforced concrete structures enjoys prominent position among civil engineers in recent years. As most produced stress and damage occurs at the edges of shear wall under combination of vertical and lateral loads, it is expected that seismic behavior of shear walls can be improved by using boundary element at their edges and considering special reinforcing rules. In this thesis, the effect of boundary element details and parameters on seismic behavior of shear walls has been evaluated by a finite element model. By comparing the results with parameters specified in codes, the modeling parameters and performance levels given for shear... 

This thesis studies the effect of soil-structure interaction on the seismic performance of structures with due account of uncertainties. The motivation for this study stems from the significant uncertainty in the earthquake ground motion and in the properties of the soil and the nonlinear behavior of the structure. The soil-structure system is modeled by the sub-structure method. The uncertainty in the properties of the system is described by random variables that are input to this model. Monte Carlo sampling is employed to compute the probability distribution of responses that describe the seismic performance of the structure, such as the ductility demand. In each sample, a randomly... 

One of the lateral-load bearing systems that has been recommended since almost 40 years ago is the steel plate shear wall (SPSW) system, which consists of a steel plate surrounded by beams and columns in each story. As for the performance of SPSWs, it is assumed that the boundary members of the wall’s plate, i.e. beams and columns, have sufficient stiffness and strength, so that they would not yield by the tensile stresses exerted due to the post-buckling behavior of the plate (tension field); and the global stability of the structure is still maintained. This assumption leads to significantly increased dimensions of the sections applied in the wall’s boundary members, particularly its... 

Integral abutment bridges (IABs) are bridges in which the deck is cast monolithically with abutment backwalls. These bridges are also jointless through deck length, due to which they act as a frame in their longitudinal direction. These differences with common seat-type bridge construction, have made IABs more economical to build and maintain and superior in seismic performance. As such, in various countries, this method of construction have been prescribed whenever possible. As an instance, integral construction is mandatory for bridges up to 60 meters in total length in England. IABs have become more of a geotechnical problem rather than simple structural problem of conventional bridges in...