Software engineering's contribution to earthquake engineering (original) (raw)
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. Fundamentals of Earthquake Engg Roberto Villaverde
Preface Earthquake engineering is a relatively new discipline. Not long ago, earthquakes were believed to be acts of God, and mitigation measures consisted mainly of prayers rather than the application of scientifi c and engineering principles. Notwithstanding its comparatively young existence, today we can say that earthquake engineering has come of age. It is a discipline that embraces a series of concepts and procedures that are well established and proven successful in mitigating the effect of earthquakes in our built environment. It is an important component of civil engineering practice and research and is taught in virtually all civil engineering programs in the United States and many other parts of the world. Many states within the United States now include seismic provisions in their building codes and require civil engineers to exhibit knowledge of earthquake engineering principles to obtain their professional license. Surprisingly however, up to now there has not been a suitable textbook to introduce senior or fi rst-year graduate students to the subject. There have been several excellent books during the past four decades devoted to earthquake engineering, but, for the most part, they have been written as reference books directed to practicing professionals or advanced graduate students. They emphasize a general coverage with the purpose of disseminating the current knowledge and current practice, leaving the fundamentals and the details to a comprehensive list of references. As such, they usually overwhelm the uninitiated, who are left unclear as to what are the fundamental issues, and what are the more controversial and less durable ones. Fundamental Concepts of Earthquake Engineering has been conceived as a textbook to introduce beginners to the fundamental aspects of earthquake engineering. It is written primarily for students who have had little or no exposure to the subject, although it is also written to serve as a reference document for practicing engineers and those who need to prepare for the seismic portion of a civil engineering professional exam. It presupposes no previous knowledge of any of the aspects of earthquake engineering, and every attempt has been made to present all pertinent background information. However, the level at which the text has been written presumes familiarity with basic mathematics such as calculus, linear algebra, probability theory, and differential equations. It also presumes knowledge of the material covered in basic undergraduate engineering courses such as statics, dynamics, structural analysis, and matrix methods of analysis. Furthermore, it presumes a formal training in and thorough understanding of the basic principles of structural dynamics. Fundamental Concepts of Earthquake Engineering has been modeled after textbooks that cover other, more established disciplines, whose main purpose is to present basic concepts, not all that is known about the discipline or recent advances and state-of-the-art procedures. In other words, concepts whose mastery would allow students to understand the essence of the subject, awaken their interest for topics not discussed in this book, and facilitate the learning of these topics by self-study. In this spirit, a great effort has been made to identify the most relevant aspects of the subject, present them clearly and thoroughly, and integrate them in a logical sequence. Similarly, the coverage is at the deepest level that is possible and practical. This means the presentation of theoretical derivations and disclosure of all applicable assumptions and limitations. Additionally, several pedagogical features are introduced. First, many numerical examples are included to illustrate, clarify, and reinforce the covered material, and many end-of-chapter problems are given to provide the students with the hands-on experience that is needed to master them. Second, many photographs are inserted throughout the text as a means to inspire and motivate students, annotating each photograph with a detailed description of the subject or concept it is supposed to illustrate. Third, some of the discussed concepts and methods are summarized in a series of highly visible boxes to draw attention to them and facilitate their review. Fourth, relevant terms and defi nitions are written in italics the fi rst time they are introduced to highlight their relevance and also indicate they are part of the established earthquake engineering language. Finally, ample anecdotal and historical facts
ISEE: Internet-Based Simulations for Earthquake Engineering Part I: The Database Approach
2003
To satisfy the potential demands on future structural experiments, an Internet-based environment, named ISEE (Internet-based Simulations for Earthquake Engineering) is being developed for collaborative networked pseudo-dynamic experiments among geographically distributed laboratories. Two approaches, namely, the Database Approach and the Application Protocol Approach, are prototyped to provide different solutions for network communication as well as collaborative framework in the ISEE. This paper introduces the framework and main components of the Database Approach. The Data Center provides a database (Microsoft SQL Server) for experimental data exchange and repository, as well as a web service (Microsoft Internet Information Server) for setting up a new experiment and viewing the experimental data. The Facility Controllers serves as an interface between the experimental facility in a laboratory and the Data Center. The Analysis Engine performs pseudo-dynamic analyses. Based on the OpenSees framework, this work implements a new element type, called pseudoGen, to act as actual specimen components in the finite element model by exchanging displacement and resisting forces with a Facility Controller through the Data Center. The cameras and the video server capture the real-time video images of the experiment and share them thru the Internet with viewers using common WWW browsers.
Hardware-software system for simulating and analyzing earthquakes applied to civil structures
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2012
The occurrence of recent strong earthquakes, the incessant worldwide movements of tectonic plates and the continuous ambient vibrations caused by traffic and wind have increased the interest of researchers in improving the capacity of energy dissipation to avoid damages to civil structures. Experimental testing of structural systems is essential for the understanding of physical behaviors and the building of appropriate analytic models in order to expose difficulties that may not have been considered in analytical studies. This paper presents a hardware-software system for exciting, monitoring and analyzing simultaneously a structure under earthquake signals and other types of signals in real-time. Effectiveness of the proposed system has been validated by experimental case studies and has been found to be a useful tool in the analysis of earthquake effects on structures.
2014
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
OPENSIGNAL: A COMPLETE SOFTWARE FRAMEWORK FOR EARTHQUAKE RECORD PROCESSING AND SELECTION
The use of ground motion data has been increasing worldwide due to the increasing availability of ground motion records and increased interest from the earthquake engineering community in using linear and nonlinear response history analysis in seismic analysis and design. In particular, selection and processing of earthquake records plays a key role in seismic risk assessment of buildings and structures in general. The earthquake ground motion processing signal tool OPENSIGNAL presented in this paper applies methods commonly used in earthquake engineering for the analysis of seismic data. It constitutes an efficient way to process multiple ground motion records, deriving a number of strong-motion parameters often required by structural engineers and seismologists. In fact, the user of ground motion records typically needs to use a large number of specialized and general purpose applications to perform relatively simple tasks such as displaying and comparing ground motion histories, searching for records that satisfy certain criteria or match a spectral shape, processing records to perform baseline correction or filtering, and computing ground motion properties and linear and/or nonlinear spectra. OPENSIGNAL is a computer program that joins together in software different features such as: research and selection of ground motion records, signal analysis, elastic response spectra creation, target spectrum definition, spectral and waveform matching. The main scope is to provide users with an instrument, which is able to define completely the seismic input to be used in structural engineering applications. The software is freely downloadable for the general public at the following website: http://areeweb.polito.it/ricerca/ICRED/Software/OpenSignal.php .
2015
Past earthquakes have demonstrated that industrial facilities such as petrochemical refineries can become largely damaged from the effects of strong ground motions. While much information on seismic assessment is related to conventional buildings, a lack of information is apparent with respect to most industrial infrastructure. As a matter of fact, most of the structures found in such facilities are complex by the nature of the operating process. This study evaluates the seismic performance of a modern piperack, which is representative of a typical typology present in refineries. A numerical 3D model built in the OpenSees platform is used to examine the response of the steel structure and the piping system attached to the mechanical equipment. The analysis method selected is incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), which involves multiple nonlinear time history analysis under a suite of ground motion records. The resultant set of IDA curves are in turn used to generate analytical fragili...
Earthquake engineering into the next millennium
The economical losses, both direct and indirect, and social costs associated with the 1989 Loma Prieta, 1994 Northridge, and 1995 Hyogo-ken Nambu earthquakes, each of which impacted major urban centers, have produced paradigm shifts in the practice of earthquake engineering in Japan and the United States. In the United States, these earthquakes have led to substantial advances in engineering seismology and the engineering characterization of near-field earthquake shaking; provided much new information on soil liquefaction and its impact on the built environment; resulted in substantial changes to minimum standards of engineered construction, which are dictated by codes of practice; fostered discussion and study of minimum levels of performance for buildings; facilitated the development of standards for performancebased earthquake engineering; and led to the widespread use of advanced technologies to enhance the seismic performance of buildings and bridges. Summary remarks on three of the key impacts on structural engineering follow.