Beyza Taskin

The aftermath of 2011 Van earthquakes: evaluation of strong motion, geotechnical and structural issues

October 23rd, 2011 ML6.7 (Mw7.2 KOERI) Tabanli-Van Earthquake caused damage in a widespread area specifically in the settlement regions throughout the Lake Van. A number of 58 buildings totally collapsed during the shake with 52 of them however, reported to be in Ercis district. 17 days after this destructive event, another earthquake of ML5.6 hit the region again on the 9th of November having the epicentral location at Edremit district. The second earthquake mostly affected the central region of Van province with a number of 25 totally collapsed buildings and furthermore it significantly increased the existing structural damages. Strong motion records from both earthquakes and their impacts on structures as well as geotechnical issues are studied in this paper. Extensive liquefaction triggered lateral spread, landslide and slope failure cases were observed mainly at non-residential areas. Soil amplification is evaluated to be one of the main reasons for the heavy damage occurred in Ercis. Furthermore, site investigations and damage assessment performed after each earthquake proved that the observed damages are strongly correlated with insufficient qualities of structural materials, inadequate detailing and poor workmanship.

Numerical simulation of RC infill walls under cyclic loading and calibration with widely used hysteretic models and experiments

Addition of reinforced concrete (RC) infill walls into the structural system has been a commonly preferred strengthening technique within the last decades for seismic rehabilitation of RC frames. As a consequence, generating a representative numerical model of an RC infill wall has become an important issue. As the initial step of this study, measured structural responses of two selected well-known large-scale RC infill wall experiments subjected to displacement controlled cyclic loading are taken into account. Later, by calibrating the numerical model prepared in Perform-3D computer program utilizing fiber cross-sections, a practical and a compatible analytical model is obtained and proposed herein. Structural systems of the experiments are mathematically modeled by elements consisting of vertical and horizontal fiber layers to represent the bending/axial behavior and to control the out of plane displacements, respectively. Nonlinear behavior of the reinforcing steel is represented by a tri-linear backbone curve without strength degradation, while a multi-linear hysteretic behavior considering the strength loss is utilized for the structural concrete. Furthermore, those recently conducted experiments are simulated by a couple of widely used hysteretic models for comparative purposes, which are preferred in most cases by the researchers during the analytical investigation of RC structures, so that their adequacy for reflecting the nonlinear behavior of infill walls are also studied. It is shown with comparisons for the experimentally measured and the analytically derived results that the calibrated mathematical model proposed herein is more compatible with the measured values than the widely used hysteretic rules for capturing the behavior of these types of frames retrofitted by RC infill walls under reversed cyclic loading. Although numerical simulations are carried out for a limited number of tests and it is assumed that sufficient amount of anchoring dowels is provided at the interface of the existing frame and the RC infill, the proposed calibrated model conforms to both experiments’ measured responses by means of seismic behavior for not only the undamaged single bay frames converted to the RC infill wall, but also pre-damaged multi-bay strengthened structures, which include structural deficiencies like low concrete strength, inadequate stiffness and insufficient confinement.

Proposed Vulnerability Functions to Estimate the Real Damage State of RC Buildings After Major Turkish Earthquakes

The Chapter focuses on the applicability of fragility relationships, to predict the seismic vulnerability of existing structures. Since these relationships offer the probability of exceeding a predefined structural response limit in terms of a ground motion intensity parameter, fragility functions are very practical tools to be employed during urban renewal of metropolitan cities with high seismicity. A building ensemble which experienced various damage levels after major Turkish earthquakes is considered herein. Planar structural models for each building are established utilizing DRAIN-2DX computer program and nonlinear dynamic analyses are carried out. The demand parameters are obtained and the capacity is determined in terms of limit states. Finally, fragility relationships recently proposed by various researchers are employed for the building set and compared with the analytical results by means of reflecting the most reliable actual damage state.