Experimental and numerical response of rigid slender blocks with geometrical defects under seismic excitation

The present work investigates on the influence of small geometrical defects on the behavior of slender rigid blocks. A comprehensive experimental campaign was carried out on one of the shake tables of CEA/Saclay in France. The tested model was a massive steel block with standard manufacturing qualit...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mathey Charlie, Feau Cyril, Politopoulos Ioannis, Clair David, Baillet Laurent, Fogli Michel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: EDP Sciences 2015-01-01
Series:MATEC Web of Conferences
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/20152409004
Description
Summary:The present work investigates on the influence of small geometrical defects on the behavior of slender rigid blocks. A comprehensive experimental campaign was carried out on one of the shake tables of CEA/Saclay in France. The tested model was a massive steel block with standard manufacturing quality. Release, free oscillations tests as well as shake table tests revealed a non-negligible out-of-plane motion even in the case of apparently plane initial conditions or excitations. This motion exhibits a highly reproducible part for a short duration that was used to calibrate a numerical geometrically asymmetrical model. The stability of this model when subjected to 2 000 artificial seismic horizontal bidirectional signals was compared to the stability of a symmetrical one. This study showed that the geometrical imperfections slightly increase the rocking and overturning probabilities under bidirectional seismic excitations in a narrow range of peak ground acceleration.
ISSN:2261-236X