Smart 2008: Seismic Design and Best-Estimate Methods Assesment for RC Buildings Subjected to Torsion

Abstract eng:
Reinforced concrete buildings exhibiting 3D (i.e. torsion) and non-linear effects are a main concern in the field of earthquake research and regulation. In the last decade, several reinforced concrete specimens have been tested under seismic excitations in order to study the seismic behaviour of shear walls, but without significant 3D effects. In order to assess the capability of structures exhibiting 3D effects to withstand earthquake loads as well as seismic loads induced to their equipments, a reduced scaled (1/4th) model of a 3 stories reinforced concrete structure with 3D effects was tested between June and September 2008 as part of the SMART project on AZALEE shaking table (EMSI Laboratory – CEA Saclay – France). The aim of this project is (1) to compare and validate approaches used for the dynamic responses evaluation of RC structures subjected to earthquakes and exhibiting both 3D (torsion) and non-linear behaviours, (2) to evaluate loads induced to internal equipments, (3) to quantify margins in design methodologies and (4) to carry out realistic methods to quantify variability in order to produce fragility curves. This paper presents the first part of the ‘SMART’ project, which consists in a blind predictive benchmark, with more than 40 registered teams worldwide. The modelling of the structure has been conducted based on conventional data. The seismic input motions selected consist in design spectra and a set of bi-axial (real and synthetic) horizontal accelerograms (corresponding to the same sequence to be tested during the experimental phase). The objectives are (1) to evaluate conventional design methods for structural dynamic response and floor response spectra calculations and (2) to compare best-estimate methods for structural dynamic response and floor response spectra evaluation including various practices, depending on participant’s own experiences. This phase was followed, since June 2008, by a test campaign at low seismic level (3 real bi-axial accelerograms sets – pga = 0.05g) and 10 identical synthetic accelerograms sets with increasing pga (ranging from 0.1 to 1g).

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket