Sharif Digital Repository

Numerous structures which are involved in seismic soil-pile-structure interaction have been destroyed. Considering complexities which exist in soil-pile interaction problems and lack of precise methods without imperfect bases, it is necessary to use numerical methods for analyzing soil-pile interaction problems. In this research, three-dimensional modeling and studying the effect of changing soil and pile parameters on the behavior of pile under earthquake loading is performed using finite difference software, FLAC3D. The soil in this model has a softening behavior. Real earthquake spectrum has been applied into the model as the acceleration time history at the bedrock level. The results of... 

Dynamic characteristics of structures—viz., natural frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes—are central to earthquake resistant design (model validation) and health monitoring. For civil structures like buildings and bridges, these characteristics can be highly influenced by surrounding soil in addition to the super-structure’s properties and cannot be correctly estimated using numerical modeling. For example, soil’s flexibility decreases the natural frequencies of the system; and in most cases, soil provides additional damping due to material hysteresis and radiation. On account of this fact, system identification techniques must be applied to extract such information from field data,... 

The majority of modern seismic Codes and guidelines require scaling of selected ground motion time histories so that the dynamic time history analyses results will be comparable to those obtained from the dynamic modal analyses. The scaling procedure would basically apply, considering a specific part of the design spectrum depending on the approximate period of the system. In this work, the efficiency of the proposed scaling method of earthquake records by ASCE STANDARD 7-10 for evaluation of true response parameters of base isolated structures will be investigated. For this purpose, a number of 3-D structural models with different numbers of stories will be considered. Then, using... 

Following a large earthquake, numerous aftershocks can be triggered due to the complex stress interaction between and within tectonic plates. The aftershocks have the potential to cause severe weakening of mainshock-damaged buildings, threaten life safety, hamper reoccupation and restoration of buildings, and increase financial loss. The probability of aftershocks has not been included in the description of seismic hazard in performance-based earthquake engineering. This study proposes methodologies and a framework to investigate the seismic performance in the lifetime of steel MRF structures subjected to mainshock-aftershock sequences. The case studies correspond to three SAC 2D steel MRF... 

Abstract- Due to vulnerability of metallic structures to fire, to have an advance estimate of the behaviour and performance of the structure during fire, can greatly assist the designers to make preparations and take precautionary measures to prevent excessive damage to the building. The study of the behaviour of a structure at high temperatures can be divided into two parts, that of its members, and that of its joints. The survey of the literature reveals that most of the previous work concentrated on the former, and it seems that there has not been much work on the latter. The objective of this project was to study the behaviour of structural joints at elevated temperatures, in general,... 

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of some strengthening methods such as steel jacketing, concrete jacketing and FRP wraps in the overall behavior of structures and introducing the most appropriate method. For this purpose a 14 story building with intentionally weak designed shear walls was considered, subsequently each of the strengthening methods were followed for the shear walls and relative structural outcomes like total stiffness and lateral movements were calculated, studied and compared and finally a guideline for choosing the most appropriate strengthening method for concrete shear walls is resulted. It is established that for the system with steel jacketing... 

Nowadays, the design of new structures and the renovation of existing buildings against earthquakes using energy absorption systems are very common. On the other hand, the near-field earthquake are characterized by directivity related velocity pulses with large accelerations. Recent studies have shown that the performance of the passive energy dissipation mechanisms are significantly depended on the characteristics of the near field velocity pulses. The efficiency of various passive dampers in damage mitigation of different building structures have been carefully evaluated under near field and far field earthquake records. In this study, the ability of viscoelastic dampers in controlling the... 

So far, several studies have been conducted on the endurance time method. In general, these studies can be categorized into two categories. The first group of studies are based on the theoretical foundations of this methodology and the second group of researches that use the method of endurance time in different engineering issues of earthquake and engineering, and also compare the results of this method with other conventional methods of seismic analysis.The purpose of this study, which is more in the first category of research, is to optimize the acceleration functions using various Transform, such as Fourier and Wavelet, as well as the use of various optimization algorithms. In optimizing... 

In developing countries, one of the structural systems used for many buildings is the masonry system, and there are also many existing buildings worldwide with different uses constructed with this system, some of these buildings may have a major historical value and because of that, study of behavior of these buildings to find effective ways to improve their behavior is very important. In this study, the use of Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) for retrofit masonry walls is examined. For this purpose, seven scaled brick walls is used, including a test model, a model coated with plane concrete on one side of the wall, a model coated with plane concrete on both sides of the wall, a model... 

Natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, have been, and will be, one major source of mankind disastrous problems. Mankindinterventions to relieve this heavy pressure on humanity have been divided into four categories: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. This study is in the response phase, and aims to find an optimal network to help people in the devastated part of a city, hit by a major earthquake. Such earthquakes demolish buildings over the people inside, causing them fatal harm and serious injuries. At the same time, they ruin the city infrastructures (life lines), including transportation networks, preventing flow of relief supply to reach to the... 

Researches carried out on the damages imparted to the building structures under severe earthquakes have shown the importance of asymmetry effects of the buildings on the level of these damages. In these cases, the structures enter into the nonlinear state of their behavior and the structural elements, as well as nonstructural ones undergo large deformations. Additional damping systems have been proposed in many studies to avoid enforcing such large forces on the structures. One example of these systems is viscous fluid damper. The effectiveness of this type of dampers in reduction of the forces has been shown in many previous works. In this research we look for a damping eccentricity which... 

Adobe structures are considered as masonry structures which are out of scope of 2800 Iranian code. Due to this code, since these structures are made of weak materials, they do not have a considerable resistance to earthquakes. Since these structures can be found all around Iran; therefore, seismic study of walls as an important component of these structures, is, indeed, necessary. During this study, cyclic tests on three types of adobe walls, without opening, with window-opening, and with door-and-window-opening with a scale of 2:3 were done to study their in-plane behavior and also their failure modes. Based on our observations, in these walls, because of small ratio of height to length,... 

Structural response to near fault ground motions has received significant attention in recent years. Such ground motions are different from ordinary ones and are characterized by a large, long period, velocity pulse caused by the forward directivity. These velocity pulses could potentially impose sever demands on structures and increase their risk of seismic collapse. The situation could even be worse for tall buildings with fundamental periods close to the period of the velocity pulses, and requires special consideration in design process. Prediction of seismic-induced collapse potential of structures has been among the main concerns in Performance Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE). The... 

The main goal of partake quake-attenuating in buildings is to absorb energy and to attenuate the exerted forces into structures as a result of ground motions. Notwithstanding achievements and developments in the field of dampers production, applying of dampers in structures is proportional to following complicated technology and subtle engineering. Installation and initiation of dampers depend on educated and expert crew; moreover, such attenuating systems need maintenance and repair during the useful structural life time. Therefore, nowadays civil engineering suffers from the lack of such quake-attenuating systems to be able to respond simply but applicable mechanism at the same time for... 

Earthquakes cause considerable damages and human and financial losses all around the world. Without doubt, the most important earthquake injuries are those that arise as a result of building failure in an earthquake. Conventional design codes provided a minimum level of protection against strong ground shaking to mitigate earthquake effects on structure by utilizing structural elements such as shear walls, braced frames, etc. Although, these provisions guarantee only that the building will not collapse, but it does not protect the buildings from structural damage. This method considers strengthening of structural lateral resistance system to verify earthquake forces. However, new methods... 

The purpose of this research is to study methods of Seismic retrofitting of buried pipelines in soil slopes subjected to landslide due to earthquakes. For this purpose, two methods were considered. The first method is to increase the burial depth of pipes. To check the performance of this method, results of three physical model tests conducted by previous research groups in this project, were used. The second method is to construct flexible retaining walls adjacent to buried pipe in soil slope. Wall was selected of Expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam. For this purpose a physical model was built on and excited using shaking table facility of Sharif University of Technology. Simulation laws... 

Resiliency is, now, recognized as a vital characteristics of every urban transportation network. This is so, because transportation network is considered as a life-line in disastrous events, such as major earthquakes. In this respect, design of networks may be considered (1) before the incident, (2) after the incident for 72 hours, and (3) from this 72 hours on. From the point of view of (1), design of the network may be considered as strengthening important links under budget constraints to withstand the design incident, in order to be able to function properly (to help the affected people, to evacuate the populated area, etc.).Design of network based on the point of view of (2), the one... 

Drift spectrum has recently been introduced as a new measure for estimating the inter-story drift demands in buildings under near field ground motions. This new spectrum is developed using a uniform-stiffness continuous beam model. Practical limitations in the procedures based on such beam models have caused structural engineers to pay little attention to drift spectra. This thesis uses a lumped mass, non-uniform beam model to calculate the linearly elastic and also nonlinear drift spectra. The proposed method is simple and can overcome many deficiencies of the previously introduced models. In contrast to the other available methods, it can take into account the very important effect of... 

Power law behavior of earthquakes has been a matter of interest for many scientists. One on these power laws known as Gutenberg-Richter law describes the magnitude distribution of earthquakes. The Burridge-Knopoff model of faults, produces the same power law distribution of events as the Gutenberg-Richter law for earthquakes. Olami, Feder and Christensen in 1992, introduced a 2-D, continues sand pile model Known as OFC that displays self-organized-criticality. They claimed that this model is equivalent to Burridge-Knopoff model. It means that criticality is the origin of power law behavior of the Burridge-Knopoff model. Nevertheless, there are some evidence against criticality in the... 

The objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of the existing buildings subjected to the near field earthquakes. The main applications of this research are loss estimation and performance evaluation of the existing buildings. That could provide a better solution and particularly more useful information to the owners, investors, and insurers about the expected performance of buildings under earthquake excitations. A number of 2, 5 and 8 story reinforced concrete buildings, designed according to the old Iranian seismic provisions of ISIRI-519 and ACI 318-83 codes for the ordinary moment resisting frames, are considered. By the use of a number of near field earthquake...