Progressive Collapse Resistance of a New Staggered Story Isolated System

A new staggered isolated system developed from the mid-story isolated system is the new staggered story isolated system. There are not many studies on this structure currently. In this study, an 18-story new staggered story isolated system model is established using SAP2000. The dynamic nonlinear dynamic alternate method is used to analyze the structure against progressive collapse. Results show that the structure has good resistance to progressive collapse, and there is no progressive collapse under each working condition. The progressive collapse does not occur for the case of removing only one vertical structural member of the new staggered of isolated system. The side column has big influence on this isolated structures’ progressive collapse;the removal of vertical structural member of the isolation layer has less impact on the structure than the removal of the bottom vertical structural member. After the removing of the member, the internal force of the structure will be redistributed, and the axial force of the adjacent columns will change obviously, showing a trend of “near large and far small”.

Evaluation of collapse resistance of RC frame structures for Chinese schools in seismic design categories B and C

According to the Code for Seismic Design of Buildings （GB50011-2001）, ten typical reinforced concrete （RC） frame structures, used as school classroom buildings, are designed with different seismic fortification intensities （SFIs） （SFI=6 to 8.5） and different seismic design categories （SDCs） （SDC=B and C）. The collapse resistance of the frames with SDC=B and C in terms of collapse fragility curves are quantitatively evaluated and compared via incremental dynamic analysis （IDA）. The results show that the collapse resistance of structures should be evaluated based on both the absolute seismic resistance and the corresponding design seismic intensity. For the frames with SFI from 6 to 7.5, because they have relatively low absolute seismic resistance, their collapse resistance is insufficient even when their corresponding SDCs are upgraded from B to C. Thus, further measures are needed to enhance these structures, and some suggestions are proposed.

Influence of soil——structure interaction on seismic collapse resistance of super-tall buildings

Numerous field tests indicate that the soilestructure interaction （SSI） has a significant impact on thedynamic characteristics of super-tall buildings, which may lead to unexpected structural seismic responsesand/or failure. Taking the Shanghai Tower with a total height of 632 m as the research object, thesubstructure approach is used to simulate the SSI effect on the seismic responses of Shanghai Tower. Therefined finite element （FE） model of the superstructure of Shanghai Tower and the simplified analyticalmodel of the foundation and adjacent soil are established. Subsequently, the collapse process of ShanghaiTower taking into account the SSI is predicted, as well as its final collapse mechanism. The influences ofthe SSI on the collapse resistance capacity and failure sequences are discussed. The results indicate that,when considering the SSI, the fundamental period of Shanghai Tower has been extended significantly,and the collapse margin ratio has been improved, with a corresponding decrease of the seismic demand.In addition, the SSI has some impact on the failure sequences of Shanghai Tower subjected to extremeearthquakes, but a negligible impact on the final failure modes. 2014 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting byElsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The development of super-high collapse resistant casing

Super-high collapse resistant casings were developed by using Ti, Nb and V microalloyed CrMo steel and cross rolling techniques. A transmission electron microscope（TEM） and X-ray diffractometer were used to observe the characteristics of the microstructure. It was found that the （ 111 ） texture and the nano-scale precipitates distribute in a way that is beneficial to the collapse resistance, and the collapse strength of the prepared casing had a measurement, which was approximately 60% higher than the API standard value. A design concept to attain super-high collapse resistance is proposed based on the texture design and microstructure control.