No Arabic abstract
In countries with a moderate seismic hazard, the classical methods developed for strong motion prone countries to estimate the seismic behaviour and subsequent vulnerability of existing buildings are often inadequate and not financially realistic. The main goals of this paper are to show how the modal analysis can contribute to the understanding of the seismic building response and the good relevancy of a modal model based on ambient vibrations for estimating the structural deformation under moderate earthquakes. We describe the application of an enhanced modal analysis technique (Frequency Domain Decomposition) to process ambient vibration recordings taken at the Grenoble City Hall building (France). The frequencies of ambient vibrations are compared with those of weak earthquakes recorded by the French permanent accelerometric network (RAP) that was installed to monitor the building. The frequency variations of the building under moderate earthquakes are shown to be slight (~2%) and therefore ambient vibration frequencies are relevant over the elastic domain of the building. The modal parameters extracted from ambient vibrations are then used to determine the 1D lumped-mass model in order to reproduce the inter-storey drift under weak earthquakes and to fix a 3D numerical model that could be used for strong earthquakes. The correlation coefficients between data and synthetic motion are close to 80% and 90% in horizontal directions, for the 1D and 3D modelling, respectively.
Previous studies of precariously balanced objects in seismically active regions provide important information for aseismatic engineering and theoretical seismology. They are almost founded on an oversimplified assumption: any 3-dimensional (3D) actual object with special symmetry could be regarded as a 2D finite object in light of the corresponding symmetry. To gain an actual evolution of precariously balanced objects subjected to various levels of ground accelerations, a 3D investigation should be performed. In virtue of some reasonable works from a number of mechanicians, we derive three resultant second-order ordinary differential equations determine the evolution of 3D responses. The new dynamic analysis is following the 3D rotation of a rigid body around a fixed point. A computer program for numerical solution of these equations is also developed to simulate the rocking and rolling response of axisymmetric objects to various levels of ground accelerations. It is shown that the 2D and 3D estimates on the minimum overturning acceleration of a cylinder under the same sets of half- and full-sine-wave pulses are almost consistent except at several frequency bonds. However, we find that the 2D and 3D responses using the actual seismic excitation have distinct differences, especially to north-south (NS) and up-down (UD) components. In this work the chosen seismic wave is the El Centro recording of the 18 May 1940 Imperial Valley Earthquake. The 3D outcome does not seem to support the 2D previous result that the vertical component of the ground acceleration is less important than the horizontal ones. We conclude that the 2D dynamic modeling is not always reliable.
During the past two decades, the use of ambient vibrations for modal analysis of structures has increased as compared to the traditional techniques (forced vibrations). The Frequency Domain Decomposition method is nowadays widely used in modal analysis because of its accuracy and simplicity. In this paper, we first present the physical meaning of the FDD method to estimate the modal parameters. We discuss then the process used for the evaluation of the building stiffness deduced from the modal shapes. The models considered here are 1D lumped-mass beams and especially the shear beam. The analytical solution of the equations of motion makes it possible to simulate the motion due to a weak to moderate earthquake and then the inter-storey drift knowing only the modal parameters (modal model). This process is finally applied to a 9-storey reinforced concrete (RC) dwelling in Grenoble (France). We successfully compared the building motion for an artificial ground motion deduced from the model estimated using ambient vibrations and recorded in the building. The stiffness of each storey and the inter-storey drift were also calculated.
Seismic vulnerability analysis of existing buildings requires basic information on their structural behaviour. The ambient vibrations of buildings and the modal parameters (frequencies, damping ration and modal shapes) that can be extracted from them naturally include the geometry and quality of material in the linear elastic part of their behaviour. The aim of this work is to use this modal information to help the vulnerability assessment. A linear dynamic modal model based on experimental modal parameters is proposed and the fragility curve corresponding to the damage state ?Slight? is built using this model and a simple formula is proposed. This curve is particularly interesting in moderate seismic areas. This methodology is applied to the Grenoble City where ambient vibrations have been recorded in 61 buildings of various types and to the Pointe-`a-Pitre City with 7 study-buildings. The fragility curves are developed using the aforementioned methodology. The seismic risk of the study-buildings is discussed by performing seismic scenarios.
We present a method for locating the seismic event epicenters without assuming an Earth model of the seismic velocity structure, based on the linear relationship between $log R$ and $log t$ (where $R$ is the radius of spherical P wave propagated outwards from the hypocenter, $t$ is the travle-time of the P wave). This relationship is derived from the dimensional analysis and a lot of theoretical or real seismic data, in which the earthquake can be considered to be a point source. Application to 1209 events occurred from 2014 to 2017 in the IASPEI Ground Truth (GT) reference events list shows that our method can locate the correct seismic event epicenters in a simple way. $sim 97.2$ % of seismic epicenters are located with both longitude and latitude errors $in[-0.1^circ, +0.1^circ]$. This ratio can increase if with a finer search grid. As a direct and global-search location, this method may be useful in obtaining the earthquake epicenters occurred in the areas where the seismic velocity structure is poorly known, the starting points or the constraints for other location methods.
Wide-area dynamic studies are of paramount importance to ensure the stability and reliability of power grids. The rising deployment synchrophasor and other sensing technologies has made data-driven modeling and analysis possible using the synchronized fast-rate dynamic measurements. This paper presents a general model-free framework of inferring the grid dynamic responses using the ubiquitous ambient data collected during normal grid operations. Building upon the second-order dynamic model, we have established the connection from the cross-correlation of various types of angle, frequency, and line flow data at any two locations, to their corresponding dynamic responses. The theoretical results enabled a fully data-driven framework for estimating the latter using real-time ambient data. Numerical results using the WSCC 9-bus system and a synthetic 2000-bus Texas system have demonstrated the effectiveness of proposed approaches for dynamic modeling of realistic power systems.