No abstract

The seismic design codes/standards of most countries include the nonlinear response of a structure implicitly through a response reduction/modification factor (R). It is the factor by which the actual base shear should be reduced to find the design base shear during design basic earthquake considering nonlinear behavior and deformation limits of structures. In the present study, attempts are made to determine the 'R' factors of four existing RC staging elevated water tanks, which are designed as per draft Indian standards for seismic design of liquid and RC designs and having a ductile detailing considering the effects of soil flexibility. The elevated RC water tanks are analyzed using displacement controlled non-linear static pushover analysis to evaluate the base shear capacity and ductility of tank considering soil flexibility. The 'R' factor is obtained for four realistic designs of elevated RC water tanks having different capacities at two performance levels. The evaluated values of 'R' factor are compared with the values suggested in the design code. The results of the study show that the flexibility of supporting soil has considerable effect on response reduction factor, period and overall performance of water tank, indicating that idealization of fixity at base may be seriously mistaken for soft soils. All the studied water tanks were designed with higher safety margin than that of specified in Indian Standards.

<p>This paper introduces an approach to the realization of an ICT-based bridge remote monitoring system which enables real-time monitoring and control for unexpected heavy loads such as big earthquake and strong typhoon. In this paper, the integrated bridge remote monitoring system called the “Intelligent Bridge” consists of a stand-alone monitoring system (SMS) and a web-based internet monitoring system (IMS) for bridge maintenance but also its application to intelligent bridge system as an intelligent structure. For the purpose of verifying its validity to actual bridge structure, an attempt is made to study the possibility of controlling the actual structural performance by adjusting the cable forces on a 2-span continuous cable-stayed bridge model. The experimental results demonstrate that the implemented monitoring system supplies detailed and accurate information about bridge behavior for further evaluation and diagnosis, and it also opens up prospects for future application of web-based remote system to actual in-service bridges under field conditions.</p>