Department of Civil, Construction &
Environmental Engineering


Sponsors


NEESR-CR: Unbonded Post-Tensioned Rocking Walls for Seismic Resilient Structures


Sponsor(s): National Science Foundation (NSF)
Investigators: Sri Sritharan (Principal Investigator)
Catherine French (Co-Principal Investigator)
Andrea Schokker (Co-Principal Investigator)
Team Member(s): Sriram Alaeti


Project Description:

In collaboration with E-Defense in Japan and researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the intellectual merit of this project is the development of seismic resilient building solutions utilizing the fundamental characteristics of seismic rocking of both SRWs and PreWECs. By involving an international, cross-disciplinary team of experts and two NEES facilities, the project will accomplish this goal by completing the following objectives:

1)Understand the fundamental characteristics of seismic rocking of self-centering walls through NEES/international tests, thereby identifying different energy dissipation sources (i.e., energy loss due to impact, viscous damping and hysteretic damping).

2) Develop suitable connections between rocking walls and floors, and quantify the wall-floor-column interactions using large-scale tests

3) Ensure safety of the rocking systems through sufficient anchorage of the unbonded tendons.

4) Design seismic resilient structures. 5) Improve numerical simulation of buildings designed with rocking walls and different floor systems

6) Formulate design guidelines, educate students, practitioners, and others (e.g., policymakers) on the significance of the proposed study.