Experimental Validation of a Structural Glass Window Design for In-plane Seismic Strengthening: Numerical predictions and experimental validation of unreinforced masonry structures in Groningen area

Gas extractions are responsible for mostly all induced earthquakes in the Groningen area and this leads to damage of houses and buildings and issues regarding safety. Current strengthening measurements are mostly very visible. However, this can change by using the window frame as part of the structure, particularly interesting for Dutch houses...

Seismic Assessment Of Dutch Urm Buildings According To Npr9998:2018 Code With An Equivalent-Frame Approach

In the last two decades, the province of Groningen, located in the North-East of the Netherlands, has been subjected to an increasing number of earthquakes induced by gas extractions. The existing building stock is mainly composed by unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings not conceived to resist seismic loads. The need of reducing the...

Simulating quasi-brittle failure in structures using Sequentially Linear Methods: Studies on non-proportional loading, constitutive modelling, and computational efficiency

Sequentially Linear Analysis (SLA) is a proven robust alternative to incremental-iterative solution methods in nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) of quasi-brittle specimen. The core of the method is in its departure from a load, displacement or arc-length driven incremental approach (aided by internal iterations to establish equilibrium)...

A comparison between the SLaMA method and NLFEA for 2D and 3D analyses of masonry structure

Each year, the province of Groningen experiences many induced earthquakes due gas extraction, which has been ongoing since 1963. The earthquakes cause damage to the buildings situated in the Groningen area, and they constitute a potential danger for the safety of the residents. These buildings are typically unreinforced masonry structures which...

Explorative nonlinear pushover analyses for historical unreinforced masonry churches: A case study in Zandeweer, Groningen

In the past decades, gas productions in the province of Groningen in The Netherlands have caused a significant amount of shallow human-induced earthquakes. Its building stock has shown to be highly vulnerable to these unexpected events. Among various building typologies, damage has been reported for approximately 12.9% of the churches in...

Retrofitting of Unreinforced Masonry with Timber Elements

Due to gas extraction, seismic activity has become a major problem in the province of Groningen. Existing buildings are not designed to withstand seismic loads and are likely to be structurally unsafe. Two storey terraced houses with concrete floors and large openings in the ground floor façade walls are onsidered vulnerable, since the in-plane...

Structural Window Design for In-plane Seismic Strengthening: Numerical Predictions of Strengthening Unreinforced Masonry Structures in Groningen

In recent decades, gas production has caused numerous human-induced shallow earthquakes in the province of Groningen, The Netherlands. The buildings in this area were not designed for these unexpected earthquake loads and have shown to be vulnerable. However, current strengthening measures are considered to be time-consuming, expensive, and a...

Modeling the seismic response of a two-storey calcium silicate brick masonry structure with nonlinear pushover and time-history analyses

In the recent years, increasing induced seismic activities have been observed in the northern part of the Netherlands due to gas extraction. These seismic events may cause severe damages to the building stock in this area, which is mainly composed of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings not designed to withstand seismic loads. An extensive...

Structural assessment of a calcium silicate element masonry assemblage using an equivalent frame modelling approach

The increasing seismic activity observed in the last few years in the northern part of the Netherlands (Groningen region) due to geo-resources exploitation raised the need of assessing the current building stock, which is mainly made of low-rise unreinforced masonry structures. <br/>In this thesis the performance of the equivalent frame...

Impact on Seismic Capacity of Unreinforced Masonry Houses- by varying the Geometrical Parameters of Terraced House

Reliability based design of Bottom Founded Offshore Structures

The offshore industry and especially the oil and gas production, has faced a remarkable growth in the last decades, causing an increase in the population of offshore structures. The overwhelming majority of these structures are bottom founded and mostly made out of steel. Over these decades much experience has been gained with the design and...

Numerical Research on Elasto-Plastic Response of FPSO Topside Modules Subjected to Blast Loading Aiming at a Simplified Design Method

Structural blast analysis is usually done with two load levels for different design stages; the Strength Level Blast, SLB, and the Ductility Level Blast, DLB. Strength Level Blast is the lower magnitude overpressure (with a higher frequency of occurrence and lower consequence) and Ductility Level Blast is the higher magnitude overpressure (with...

Non-linear seismic assessment and retrofitting of unreinforced masonry buildings

Modelling the seismic response of an unreinforced masonry structure

One of the tests in the ESECMaSE project is the large scale earthquake test on a building. The finite element model that is discussed in this thesis is based on this pseudo-dynamic test. The material model follows from a macro modelling approach and has smeared-cracks. The mode shape and eigenfrequencies are obtained through an eigenvalue...

Pushover analysis of a fixed steel offshore platform - Part I: Beam-column and strut elements in the INTRA program. Part II: Piles and pile groups under extreme loads

Part I: The computer program INTRA models the collapse behavior of trusswork offshore structures with the aid of two types of elements: 'Beam-column' elements, designed to simulate bending dominated failure of structural members, and 'strut' elements, that can represent normal force dominated failure. The behavior of both types of INTRA elements...