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In this paper a general procedure for automated minimum weight design of twodimensional steel frames under seismic loading is proposed. The proposal comprises two parts: a) Formulation of automated design of frames under seismic loading and b) introduction of an optimization engine and the improvement made on it for the solution of optimal design. Seismic loading, that depends on dynamic characteristics of structure, is determined using "Equivalent static loading" scheme. The design automation is sought via formulation of the design problem in the form of a standard optimization problem in which the design requirements is treated as optimization constraints. The Optimality Criteria (OC) method has been modified/improved and used for solution of the optimization problem. The improvement in (OC) algorithm relates to simultaneous identification of active set of constraints and calculation of corresponding Lagrange multipliers. The modification has resulted in rapid convergence of the algorithm, which is promising for highly nonlinear optimal design problems. Two examples have been provided to show the procedure of automated design and optimization of seismic-resistant frames and the performance and capability of the proposed algorithm.

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The objective of this paper is to present a new method for protecting the lives of residents in catastrophic earthquake failures of unreinforced masonry buildings by introducing some safe rooms within the buildings. The main idea is that occupants can seek refuge within the safe rooms as soon as the earthquake ground motions are felt. The information obtained from the historical ground motions happened in seismic zones around the globe expresses the lack of enough safety of masonry buildings against earthquake. For this potentially important reason, an attempt has been made to create some cost-effective seismic-resistant areas in some parts of the existing masonry buildings, which are called safe rooms. The practical method for creating these areas and increasing the occupant safety of the buildings is to install some prefabricated steel frames in some of their rooms or in their halls. These frames do not carry any service loads before earthquake. However, if a near field seismic event happens and the load bearing walls of the building destroy, some parts of its floors, which are in the safe areas, will fall on the roof of the installed frames consequently, the occupants who have sheltered in the safe rooms will survive. This paper expresses the experimental and theoretical work executed on the steel structures of the safe rooms for bearing the shock and impact loads. Finally, it was concluded that both the strength and displacement capacity of the steel frames were adequate to accommodate the distortions generated by seismic loads and aftershocks properly.

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Pullback test has no scrupulous theoretical establishment. It is based on the hypothesis that the response of

the structure can be related to the response of an equivalent single degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system. This implies that

the response is controlled by a single mode. In fact, the steel frame of each safe room, which is introduced within the

unreinforced masonry buildings for protecting the lives of residents in catastrophic earthquake failures, contains a

SDOF structural system. In pullback test, the steel frame carries its gravity load first, and then it will be pushed under

an incremental lateral roof displacement pattern, which is imposed to its center of mass. This paper expresses the

results of 13 pullback tests executed by the authors on the steel frames of safe rooms. The results show that pullback

test is a practical method for seismic performance evaluation of safe rooms. Also the performance of these frames

located in a collapsing three storey masonry building is presented with favorable conclusions. In fact, the results of

pullback test of the safe room located at the ground-floor level were compared with the requirements of Iranian code

for seismic resistant design and it was concluded that the steel frame had an acceptable performance against seismic

effects.

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A new type of infilled frame has been recently proposed. It has a frictional sliding fuse, horizontally installed at the mid-height of the infill. It has already shown that such infilled frames have higher ductility, strength and damping ratio as well as more enhanced hysteresis cycles, compared with regular infilled frames. This experimental paper is focused on the influence of gravitational load on the behaviour of the fused infill panel. Furthermore, a repairing method in which damaged specimens are repaired by grout plasters is also studied. The results show that the gravitational load, applied to the surrounding frame of the infill for the dead or live loads, arises the ultimate strength of the fused infill specimens. It is also shown that repairing the failed specimen by grout was so efficient that the repaired specimen had greater strength than the original one. However, top gap, between the infill and the top beam of the enclosing frame should be absolutely avoided, because it decays the ultimate strength.

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High performance and reliability of refurbish able knee braced steel frames has been confirmed in previous researches trying to get an optimal design for its configuration. Buckling of diagonal member which affects the hysteretic behavior of KBF under cyclic loadings has not been foreseen in previous evaluations of this system. This deficiency can be improved by utilization of adjustable rotary friction damper device (FDD) as knee element. Diagonal element buckling can be prevented considering a suitable value for FDD sliding threshold moment Mf. Lower values of Mf Lower energy dissipation rate in FDD and this leads to an optimization problem. Nonlinear time history analyses have been performed in addition to lateral cyclic loading analyses to evaluate the response of single story KBF subjected to seismic excitation. Optimal Mf in FDD has been chosen according to these analyses results. Roof displacement and acceleration, base shear and diagonal element’s buckling status have been compared in optimally designed KBF and FDD utilized KBF (FKBF) with different configurations. Nonlinear dynamic analyses have been performed for one, four, eight and twelve story frames under different seismic records with several PGAs. More than 60% displacement response reduction has been earned for the FKBF without considerable increase in base shear.

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This study is devoted to investigate the effects of mass eccentricity in seismic responses of base-isolated structures subjected to near field ground motions. Superstructures with 3, 6 and 9 stories and aspect ratios equal to 1, 2 and 3 have been idealized as steel special moment frames resting on a reasonable variety of Triple Concave Friction Pendulum (TCFP) bearings considering different period and damping ratios for the isolators. Three-dimensional linear superstructure mounted on nonlinear isolators are subjected to 3 components of near-field ground motions. Under 25 near-field ground motions, effects of mass eccentricity on the main system parameters are studied. These parameters are selected as the main engineering demands including maximum isolator displacement and base shear as well as peak superstructure acceleration. The results indicate that the mass eccentricities has not a remarkable effect on isolator displacement. In contrary to displacement, torsional effect of mass eccentricity raise the base shear up to 1.75 times in a three-story superstructure. Additionally, mass eccentricity can amplify the roof acceleration of a nine-story model approximately 3 times in comparison with a symmetric superstructure. It is also concluded that eccentricity in the direction of the subjected earthquake has the most impact on base shear while the isolator displacement and roof acceleration has mostly influenced by the eccentricity perpendicular to the earthquake path.

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From practical point of view, optimum design of structures under time variable loadings faces many challenges. Issues such as time-dependent behavior of constraints and the computational costs of the gradients could be mentioned. In order to prevent such difficulties, in this paper, response spectrum method has been utilized instead of applying direct time history method. Additionally, seismic design of structures is defined as a design for a specific response spectra not for an individual acceleration time history. Furthermore, here, in order to guarantee the global optimal designs, the obtained results from gradient-based method are compared with those from the discrete optimization technique (Genetic algorithm). As well, the P-Delta effects are considered in a seismic analysis. In addition, many practical constraints according to the Iranian national building code (NBC) are included in the optimization problem. The developed MATLAB based computer program is utilized to solve the numerical examples of low, intermediate and relatively high-rise braced and un-braced steel frames.