Sharif Digital Repository

This thesis targets the multidisciplinary area of time-variant seismic risk analysis of transportation networks. For this purpose, a new methodology and a library of probabilistic models are developed. Risk, in this context, denotes the probability of exceeding the sum of direct and indirect losses due to seismic events. Direct economic losses are due to the repair cost of the physical damage in the components of the network, such as bridges. The indirect losses are due to the reduced capacity of the components for traffic flow, which results in increased travel times in the network. This leads to socioeconomic losses. In this research, a reliability-based approach is adopted to carry out... 

In recent years, the application of base isolation as a seismic design strategy for reducing the effects of earthquake ground motion has become an advantageous method and much effort has been devoted to base isolation research and there has been a growing acceptance of this approach. In this research, the effect of using base isolators in reducing the dynamic forces of piers and abutments of bridges is studied. More specifically double-span bridges are the target of this research. After modeling a regular bridge in a typical analysis program, it is excited by different earthquake accelerograms and then the effect of using base isolators in dissipating the earthquake energy is investigated  

During times, reinforced concrete sturctures might need to be strengthened due to environmental factors, material properties, design errors or changes indesign guidelines.Fibre-reinforced-polymer (FRP)composites are prominentmaterialsfor this purpose. Externally full bonding systemhas been widely used for flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete sturctures with FRP. However, the drawback of using this strengthening system is the high reduction of structure's deformability.In this research, partially bonding system used in finite element modeling of a bridge’s deck to increase deformability compared to full bonding system. Results showed that not only deformability but also load... 

High voltage dc-dc converters are widely used in industrial applications. One of the methods for generating the high voltage is series connection of isolated voltage sources which can be produced by a multiple output converter. One major problem of multiple output converters is their cross regulation. In this project, the operation of a full-bridge based dc-dc converter (FBBC) is investigated in both single output and multiple output cases and analytical expressions for its output voltage and cross regulation are derived. Then, the effect of different parameters of the converter on the cross regulation is studied. It has been shown that increasing the input voltage of the converter improves... 

Poor maintenance of concrete bridges in the past years in Iran, caused serious damages, so most of them need rehabilitation. The majority of repaired members are exposed to repeated damage because compatibility of repair material to substrate concrete not considered as well as weather and loading conditions. This study attempts to improve the repair achievement and durability of concrete bridges. This investigation contains two phases: preliminary study and experimental phase. Preliminary study attends to detect different types of damages of concrete bridges and their causes along with their propagation. The next part of this study discusses about various types of repair materials. In... 

The main purpose of this study is Performance Based Analysis of steel bridges equipped with Telescopic Dampers and also to design a suitable damper in order to improve the behavior of the structural system and, consequently, reduce the damage to the structure after the earthquake. Different models of dampers such as Buckling Restrained Braces (BRB’s), Hydraulic Dampers, Viscous Dampers, Shear Panel Dampers, Visco-Elastic Dampers, etc., are used according to their specifications along with Laminated Rubber Bearings (LRB’s) to control the structural behavior of bridge, reduce deck displacement and base shear. The result of this project is the design of a special type of telescopic dampers,... 

During an earthquake, if the seat width provided at the joint is less than the relative joint opening, the bridge’s superstructure becomes unseat which leads to potential collapse due to the lack of support. Because of the catastrophic consequences of loss of support and the perception that the damage could easily be prevented at relatively low cost, some retrofitting programs focus on preventing such failures involved the addition of longitudinal restrainer cables and bars to limit the relative movements at expansion joints. Noticing the weaknesses of usual restrainers including the transmission of excessive forces to substructures, weak capability of energy dissipation during severe... 

Bridges are among the crucial elements of transportation networks, and play an important role in facilitating emergency relief efforts following earthquakes. For this reason, it is emparative to monitor their damages to ensure about their performace in earthquakes. The structure of a bridge is divided into two parts, namely the superstructure and substructure. Due to the relatively high rigidity and strength of superstructures, most of structural damage is usually concentrated in substructures, which may ultimately affect the overall stability of the bridge. Therefore, assessing the level of damage in the substructure is of utmost concern. This research attempts to evaluate the damage in the... 

The conventional methods in concrete are usually divided to destructive and nondestructive tests. Among these, nondestructive tests are more preferable because they don’t damage the structure or at least the damage doesn’t significantly affect its performance. According to precision of estimation of concrete conditions, nondestructive tests have different levels. These tests on concrete bridge decks range from chain drag to more developed test like Ground Penetration Radar in concrete The optimum ease of use, cost and the precision of results of Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) test compared with other nondestructive methods have made it a most widely used method. The precision of results of... 

This thesis presents a probabilistic framework for prioritizing the highway bridge network for seismic retrofitting and structural health monitoring. The basis of this framework is the risk analysis of the bridge network, which includes bridges and the links connecting them in the transportation network. Risk is defined as the probability of exceeding the sum of all losses incurred to the community in the event of a hazard. These losses include the direct economic cost of bridge repairs and damage to vehicles due to bridge failure, the socioeconomic cost of increased travel time for transportation network users, the indirect economic cost of excess fuel consumption and depreciation of... 

With improvement of design and analysis techniques, use of irregular bridges has been expanded. These improve the aesthetics of urban spaces as well as providing shorter highways in impassables. Horizontally curved bridges are among the type of structures, which needs to be designed based on three-dimensional analysis. In this thesis, three-dimensional nonlinear analysis was performed by Endurance Time Method (ET) on horizontally curved bridges. Nonlinear models have been analyzed under ET acceleration functions. Comparing ET results in DBE level with earthquake responses, the difference between these two methods were determined. ET estimated earthquake responses with good accuracy;... 

Wireless power transfer provides many medical applications. Recently, power electronic devices are available with high power transmission capability at higher frequencies. This makes it possible to transfer wireless power with considerable amount of power. Due to the reductions of battery size and cost with using wireless power transfer system, this technology is introduced as one of the most interesting topics among researchers. There are obstacles in front of the progressing wireless power transfer applications. Lateral misalignment, load variations, component uncertainties in value are common in wireless power transfer applications. In order to bring this application in large scales, all... 

Eliminating the tensile stresses and providing a cost-effective isolation system, has made the unbounded isolators an attractive option. Following this idea and the results obtained by various researchers, it is shown that unbounded steel-reinforced elastomeric bearings (SREBs), which are used and designed for service limit state, have inherently acceptable characteristics for a cost-effective isolation system and can provide improved structural performance. However, this inherent capacity is neglected in the design process.The current research presents an experimental program to analyze the mechanical properties of steel-reinforced natural rubber bearings without the upper and lower... 

This thesis illustrates the typical seismic retrofitting of bridges using a model governing transverse seismic response of retrofitted bridges by simplified analytical models of the end diaphragms based on the fundamental dynamic concept as well as previous research works. For three types of ductile diaphragm devices such as Eccentrically Braced Frames (EBF), Triangular-plate Added Damping and Stiffness Devices (TADAS) and Chevron Knee Bracing (CKB)and Shear Panel System(SPS), finite element nonlinear analytical models are developed in separate flexural and shear yielding modes, and the capability of the proposed finite element models is ascertained.The IDA (Incremental Dynamic Analyses) are... 

Due to large range searches (there are various alignments between two points) as well as the complex and non-linear cost functions and a variety of geometric constraints, the problem of optimal railway alignment is known as a difficult problem. For this reason, choosing an alignment between two points is usually done based on a limited number of alignments put forward by experts. In recent years, the study of the railway alignment optimization raised again due to the importance of optimization and introduction of various algorithms and their progress in solving various problems. It is expected that applying metaheuristic optimization algorithms, such as methods based on Swarm intelligence... 

A large number of bridges in Iran are deteriorating under long and heavy traffic loadings, while getting closer to the end of their design life time. Therefore, many of them have been exhibiting various problems such as excessive vibration or large deflection under the normal service loadings. So, mitigating traffic-induced bridge vibration and damages is necessary to extend their efficient period of serviceability. On the other hand, application of active and passive control devices in structural retrofitting have absorbed the attention of many engineers and researchers. In this work, the performance of an active control system made of piezoelectric actuators is investigated in reducing the... 

Bridge is one of the most important structure that are used in urban transportation system. In recent decade, international standards and codes have introduced “Performance Based Design” for structure design criteria. Large and complex dynamic and time history analyzes are obstacles against this method; especially in finding optimum design that requires repeated analyzes. In this research, application of Endurance Time (ET) method in seismic design of urban concrete bridges has been evaluated and value based design of them has been presented. In ET method, seismic performance of structures under artificial intensifying accelerograms is investigated. Performance of structure in... 

In fractured reservoirs under the gravity mechanism, the oil transfer between the matrix blocks is affected by mechanisms such as capillary continuity or re-imbibition. Capillary continuity between adjacent matrix blocks can be created by formation of liquid bridges, or physical contact of surfaces due to the roughness of the fracture wall surface.Since the presence of liquid bridges can be effective in creating capillary continuity and therefore the amount of oil production, the study of the presence of liquid bridges between matrix blocks and how they change in terms of volume and shape in the process of oil and gas movement is of particular importance. Although there are studies on the... 

Multilevel converters are considered recently as one of the industrial solutions for high-power and power quality demanding applications. Casacade H-Bridge (CHB) converter is one of the well known topologies among multilevel converters. CHB converter is characterized by its high modularity allowing its power to be easily increased. Modularity also allows any faulty cell to be isolated, so the load can be fed by the remaining operative cells, which leads to an unbalanced output voltage of the CHB converter. To avoid the unbalanced operation, recently a solution based on modifying the phase and the magnitude of the voltage refereces has been proposed. This thesis presents a method to control...