Seismic Performance of a Two-Story Two-Bay Reinforced Concrete Building
| Category | Publications |
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| Abstract | The National Science Foundation awarded the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas with the funding to complete research on a reinforced concrete building at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taipei, Taiwan. The educational goals of this grant were to test the seismic performance of a complex structure under combined flexural, shear, and torsional loading. This paper focuses on completing a lateral load test on the specimen, collecting data from the test using a system of smart aggregates, and seismic simulation of the building. The project consisted of a biaxial pseudo-static lateral load test of a three-dimensional two-story two-bay reinforced concrete frame structure. The test specimen contained two low-rise shear walls and a mid-rise shear wall arranged to create an asymmetric floor plan. This specimen would then be subject to cyclic lateral loads so as to generate torsion, allowing its effects on specimen behavior to be studied and modeled. During the test, research on the applicability of smart aggregates to assess the seismic impacts and damages that lead to catastrophic consequences. A network of actuator-sensor smart aggregates was used to assess the severity of the damage on the structure. The assessment is based on sensor damage indices and damage matrices that relate the damaged state to the healthy state of the structure. Additionally, seismic simulation of the building was completed through the use of "Simulation of Reinforced Concrete Structures," a nonlinear finite element computer program that runs within OpenSees. Because of the complexity of the structure, the results of the test will provide researchers around the world with unique test data. |
| Contributor | Mourad Ouzzani
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| Bio | Manan Bhalja received his B.S. degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Houston. He also enrolled in graduate school at the University of Houston in Fall 2008 on a part time basis to pursue a thesis based Masters degree in Structural Engineering.
Christopher Caruso received the B.S. degree in Engineering from Swarthmore College in 2008. He is currently completing his M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, to be completed in 2009. Rachel Howser received the B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2008. She is currently working on her M.S. degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Houston. Y.L. Mo earned his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering in 1982 from the University of Hanover in Germany. Dr. Mo currently serves as a professor at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas as well as the director of the Thomas T.C. Hsu Structural Research Laboratory at the University of Houston. K.C. Tsai earned his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Tsai currently serves as a professor at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan as well as the director of the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taipei, Taiwan. |
| Cite this work | Researchers should cite this work as follows: Rachel Howser, Manan Bhalja, Chris Caruso, Y.L. Mo and K.C. Tsai, "Seismic Performance of a Two-Story Two-Bay Reinforced Concrete Building", Trip report presented at the NSF IREE 2008 Grantees Conference, May 2008, Washington, D.C. |
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