Dynamic Characteristics

Due to sloping land and high seismically active zones, designing and construction of multistory buildings in hilly regions is always a challenge for structural engineers. This review paper focuses to establish a review study on the Possible Types of building frame configuration in the hilly region and he behavior of Such building frames under seismic loading conditions, and (3) The recent research and developments to make such frames less vulnerable to earthquakes. This paper concludes that the dynamics characteristics of such buildings are significantly different in both horizontal and vertical directions, resulting in the center of mass and center of stiffness having eccentricity at point of action and not vertically aligned for different floors. When such frames are subjected to lateral loads, due to eccentricity it generates torsion in the frame. Most of the studies agree that the buildings resting on slanting ground have higher displacement and base shear compared to buildings resting on plain ground and the shorter column attracts more forces and undergoes damage when subjected to earthquake.

The current research presents a quick method for estimating the lateral stiffness and torsional stiffness of 3D MRF (moment-resistant frame) structures, considering irregular moment frames. This study also provides a method for calculating story displacement and rotation and natural frequencies with respect to different lateral load patterns. This study proposes a method for calculating lateral and torsional stiffness for each frame in two directions, and then converting the stiffness of all frames to one frame to obtain the deformation and natural frequency for two directions. The basic idea of the proposed innovative method was developed through the force method to obtain the lateral deformation and stiffness of 2D building structures. Then, the mentioned procedure was expanded into 3D building structures. Some examples have been made to compare the latter method with linear analysis. The results showed that the suggested method can capture 3D dynamic characteristics with accuracy compared with linear analysis.

A two-dimensional, seven link, nine degrees of freedom biped model was developed to investigate the dynamic characteristics of normal and transfemoral amputee locomotion during the entire gait cycle. The equations of motion were derived using the Lagrange method and the stance foot-ground contact was simulated using a five-point penetration model. The joint driving torques were obtained using forward dynamic optimization of the normal human gait and applied to the intact joints of the amputee. Three types of motion controllers; frictional, elastic and hydraulic were considered for the prosthetic joints of the amputee and their design parameters were optimized to achieve the closest kinematics to that of the normal gait. It was found that, if optimally designed, all three passive controllers could reasonably reproduce a normal kinematical pattern in the swing phase. However, the stance phase kinematics could only be replicated by the hydraulic and elastic controllers; the performance of the latter was highly sensitive to the design parameters. It was concluded that an appropriately designed hydraulic motion controller can provide reasonably normal kinematics and reliable stability for stance knee flexion prostheses. © 2013 Shandiz et al.; licensee InTech.

cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/43698/InTech-A_robotic_model_of_transfemoral_amputee_locomotion_for_design_optimization_of_knee_controllers.pdf

Together with Maisonéco, a modular system has
been developed to present a solution combining eco-sustainability with versatility, low-costs and very rapid construction times. The first module, built in 2014 in the
northern part of Italy, consists in about 30 m2 of housing module with a wooden structure and a thermal insulating panel made by compact straw with parallel fibers. The monitoring and data collection system was designed and implemented by the Institute of Technical and Professional Education - LyTechPro of Verrès (AO) within the Projet Energie, an educational project funded by CVA S.p.A., a leading production company for electricity from renewable sources owned by the Aosta Valley Autonomous Region. In this work, the experimental measurements are presented for two years, evaluating the energy performance of the straw house during the heating and cooling seasons with the indoor and outdoor thermo-hygrometric conditions. Straw does not have the best performance compared with standard insulating materials but, considering a greater thinness of the block, may reach higher levels of thermal insulation. From an environmental point of view, straw can be used in green building as it is a degradable material, its production derives by agricultural waste with low environmental impact as does not requires industrial process. Moreover, its recycling could also be exploited by agricultural sector to expand the market and thus become suppliers of straw also for the construction sector. Finally, straw characteristics are also combined with low costs, as waste material, with 2.5-3.5 euros per block or 1,000-1,400 euros per 150 m2 building.

Investigations of past and recent earthquake damage have illustrated that the building structures are vulnerable to severe damage and/or collapse during moderate to strong ground motion. Among the possible structural damages, seismic induced pounding has been commonly observed in several earthquakes. A parametric study on buildings pounding response as well as proper seismic hazard mitigation practice for adjacent buildings is carried out. Three categories of recorded earthquake excitation are used for input. The effect of impact is studied using linear and nonlinear contact force model for different separation distances and compared with nominal model without pounding consideration. Pounding produces acceleration and shear at various story levels that are greater than those obtained from the no pounding case, while the peak drift depends on the input excitation characteristics. Also, increasing gap width is likely to be effective when the separation is sufficiently wide practically...

Bridge Health Monitoring for Egnatia Odos Bridge Management System P. PANETSOS, S. LAMBROPOULOS, C. PAPADIMITRIOU, S. KARAMANOS, V. LEKIDIS and C. KARAKOSTAS ABSTRACT In Northern Greece the largest and most challenging Greek project of design, ...