Concrete Block Structural Non-Linear Earthquake Response Analysis And Performance Based Seismic Design Methodology

The concepts of performance-based earthquake engineering poses a great challenge for masonry structures, since current seismic design of such kind structures generally follows a strength-based approach. However, small-sized hollow concrete block masonry structures are widely used in China, performance-based concepts for evaluation and design of these structures are still at its early stage of development because of the complexity of masonry material compared with other traditional materials including reinforced concrete and steel. So a continuous research is highly needed to bring performance-based concepts to seismic assessment and design. In order to apply the performance based design method into hollow concrete block masonry structures, several key problems need to be solved including developing and improving analysis tool, nonlinear numerical model and determining target displacement at different performance levels. This dissertation is devoted to nonlinear seismic response analysis and the theories of performance based design method. The data visualization, the pre- and post- processor adapted for OpenSees (Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation), nonlinear numerical model and the feasible approach for determining target displacement at different performance levels are discussed respectively. The main research contents and outcomes of this work are:1. Firstly the framework, main classes and their class hierarchy are deliberatly studied, formulation of stiffness and flexibility-based nonlinear beam-column elements, and hysteretic material in OpenSees are discussed in detail. Further, a method of extending OpenSees is discussed.2. On the base of the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) , an interface module between VTK and OpenSees is developed. Moreover, a pre and post processor named OpenGUI(Open Graphical User Interface) for OpenSees is developed based on this interface module, which is a cross-platform GUI so that it provides a friendly visual environment and graphical user interface for OpenSees to improve the capacity and efficiency of analyzing large-scale and complex structures. At the same time, the module for analyzing concrete block masonry structures is also provided in OpenGUI.3. A simplified model for Nonlinear Analysis of small-sized hollow concrete block masonry structures is presented. This model is based on an idealized equivalent frame model and can be...