Project description
Innovative floor dissipation boosts the earthquake resistance of buildings
Earthquakes can feel as if a giant has taken hold of you and is shaking you back and forth. Resisting these lateral forces in buildings while enabling elasticity to prevent breakage is critical to safety. Steel concentrically braced frames (CBFs) in which diagonal braces are located in the vertical plane of the frame are commonly used for this purpose. However, they face challenges due to their complex asymmetric inelastic behaviours. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RFFD project is developing an innovative horizontal dissipation device for the floors of steel CBF buildings with the help of physics- and simulation-based computational design.
Objective
In regions of moderate and high seismicity such as Europe, steel concentrically braced frames (CBFs) are considered a cost-effective lateral force resisting system to withstand seismic and/or wind loading. Comprehensive building-specific economic loss assessment suggests that the expected annual losses of steel CBF buildings are mainly associated with repairs of acceleration-sensitive building components, which in turn results into building functionality disruption after an earthquake. Higher building vibration mode effects and the complex asymmetric inelastic behaviour of steel braces make it challenging to prevent soft-storey mechanisms that potentially lead to global collapse even in capacity-designed steel CBF buildings. The proposed project aims to address the aforementioned issues by developing an innovative dissipation device, named Recentring Friction Floor Dissipator (RFFD) to control the earthquake-induced vibration and demands in steel CBF buildings through its diaphragm response instead of the lateral load resisting system that is traditionally attempted. This will minimize the variability of the inertia force demands along with the earthquake-induced life-cycle costs. The device realization will be achieved through physics-based computational simulation-based design validated to full-scale testing. Macro-models will be developed to facilitate, for the first time, time-dependent nonlinear building simulations that will be benchmarked to a landmark system-level experiment. A graphics-based design tool will be developed that will combine in a single format economic loss metrics with multiple building performance indicators to aid decision-making for enhanced building service life in seismic regions.
After having acquired extended experience in the field of earthquake engineering in New Zealand and Japan, the applicant wants to reintegrate to Europe to consolidate his career in a leading European University.
Fields of science
Not validated
Not validated
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsdynamical systems
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- engineering and technologycivil engineeringstructural engineeringearthquake engineering
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputational sciencemultiphysics
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssimulation software
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
1015 Lausanne
Switzerland