Title: Study on the seismic behaviour of upper masonry floor with variable stiffness for multi-story brick structures with bottom-frame based on finite element simulation

Authors: Hongyu Deng; Zhonghao Zhang; Qiang Zhou; Baitao Sun; Peiyu Ying; Canbin Yin

Addresses: College of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China ' College of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China ' School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China ' Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, China Earthquake Administration, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, Harbin 150080, China ' Department of Construction Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Liaoning 116024, China ' College of Civil Engineering, Hunan City University, Yiyang Hunan, 413000, China

Abstract: The upper masonry layers of multi-story brick structures with bottom-frame were usually severely destroyed in an actual earthquake. But, it is not clear that whether the design method of equal rigidity in vertical direction of upper masonry layer is reasonable. In this paper, four contrastive models of bottom frame structures were established though ABAQUS, and the different design methods of variable vertical stiffness were used for the upper masonry layers. The seismic response results show that the upper masonry layers especially the transitional layer is severely damaged when the design method of equal rigidity in vertical direction is used. According to the principle that the stiffness of the floor in proportion to its seismic force, which can lead to uniform failure of each layer, when the upper masonry layer uses the design method of variable stiffness along vertical direction, the seismic performance of the whole structure is greatly improved.

Keywords: bottom frame structure; variable vertical stiffness; elastic-plastic time-history analysis; seismic behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2022.123421

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2022 Vol.18 No.2, pp.128 - 147

Received: 28 May 2020
Accepted: 06 Aug 2020
Published online: 20 Jun 2022 *

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