Numerical block-based simulation of rocking structures using a novel universal viscous damping model

• Autor(a) principal: Vlachakis, Giorgios
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Giouvanidis, Anastasios, Mehrotra, Anjali Abhay, Lourenço, Paulo B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/76643
• topic: Rocking; Coefficient of restitution; Viscous damping; Numerical modeling; Out-of-plane collapse; Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Civil; Science & Technology; Cidades e comunidades sustentáveis

Unreinforced masonry structures, particularly façade walls, are seismically vulnerable due to their weak connections with adjacent walls, floors, and/or roofs. During an earthquake, such walls formulate local mechanisms prone to out-of-plane collapse. This behavior has been largely investigated using classical rocking theory, which assumes the structure responds as a rigid body undergoing rocking motion, with energy dissipation at impact. Due to the complexity of the problem, however, e.g., number of degrees of freedom or boundary conditions, numerical block-based modeling is gaining momentum. However, numerical models lack a consistent and reliable treatment of the energy loss at impact. This paper bridges the gap between the well-established energy loss of classical rocking theory and the treatment of damping in numerical modeling. Specifically, it proposes an equivalent viscous damping model through novel ready-to-use predictive equations that capture the dissipative phenomena during both one-sided and two-sided planar rocking motion. The results reveal a satisfactory performance of the proposed model through comparisons with experimental results from literature and highlight its universality and robustness through applications of the model in fundamentally different block-based numerical modeling software.