research plan or research status sheet

For the research plan of your intended graduate school, create a "research plan or research
status sheet" either in Japanese or English.
423

Nationality() Italy Name() GIUSEPPE MARZANO

Theme() Optimal Seismic Retrofit of Steel Buildings using Quantitative
Estimates on Loss Reduction

1
Background
The recent earthquakes such as 2008 LAcquila, 2011 Canterbury, and 2016 Kumamoto,
highlighted the vulnerability of old buildings that do not meet the requirements of current
seismic design codes. Nevertheless, the effective use of existing building stocks is a key
to sustain the vitalization of our urban cities. Literature review provides many different
ways for seismic rehabilitation but the selection of the rehabilitation method is not
straightforward. The primary items to be considered are degrees of enhancement in
seismic performance, construction cost, period of relocation, application records, etc. In
addition, the probable damage to nonstructural components and equipment have been
getting more and more attention as they often hinder reoccupation of buildings, although
judged structurally sound. Thus, it is important to develop a smart way to select the most
appropriate retrofit measure considering vulnerability both in structures and nonstructural
components.
Research Objectives
The goal of this research is to develop a methodology to select the most appropriate retrofit measure that consider
both structural and nonstructural requirements. The methodology shall allow building users to select their own
performance objectives in a performance-based manner. This goal will be achieved through: 1) the assessment of
the effects of retrofitting on a benchmark building from structural and non-structural points of view; 2) hazard
curves for acceleration and story drift under sequential earthquake input; 3) estimation of loss reduction through
retrofitting.
Current Research Status
In regards to the above tasks 1) and 2), two different seismic retrofit approaches are currently under investigation:
A) Shear Plate Steel Walls (SPSW); B) Bracing system called Minimal-Disturbance-Arm Damper (MDAD). The
specific objectives include the performance under sequential earthquake inputs, such as foreshock-mainshock-
afterschock scenarios, which become quite important after the recent disastrous earthquakes.
The SPSW system is a topic that the applicant continues to study from his Master thesis. A schematic model of
SPSW illustrated in Figure 1(a). The system is composed of a thin steel shear panel and a steel framing. The
advantage of SPSW is its ability to provide stiffness and strength capacity enhancement. However, the corners of
the steel panel suffer greatly the accumulation of the stress and its performance against sequential loading scenario
needs careful examination. To solve this problem, the applicant currently studies on the application of Induction
Heating (IH) technique on the steel panel to partially increase the strength at the corners.
A schematic model of MDAD is shown in Figure 1(b). This system is originally developed at DPRI, Kyoto
University under the design scheme of minimal disturbance to existing framings and building users. It consists of
an energy dissipater attached to the upper part of columns, made by two bending plates that dissipate energy
kinetically by bending. These plates are linked to the mid span of frame beams with two tension-only rods.
MDAD can provide deformation capacity enhancement and ductility to the system through reduction of tensile
stress to the bottom flanges of steel beam ends. The rehabilitation through deformation capacity enhancement

2
particularly helps non-structural elements with less increase of acceleration responses unlike SPSW.

(a) SPSW Model (b) MDAD Model

Figure 1. Seismic retrofitting systems
Research Plan
Figure 3 shows the 3-years research plan to achieve the research goal. Year 1 focuses on the construction of a
methodology to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of rehabilitation and retrofit methods for enhancing seismic
capacity in structural and non-structural manners. The physical benefits of the selected rehabilitation methods to
structures will be evaluated through a large-scale testing in DPRI using by a hybrid testing environment. Year 2
focuses on construction and verification of structural fragility curves through numerical evaluations of the bare
and retrofitted benchmark steel frames. The story drift and acceleration response reductions by increases of
stiffness, strength and ductility on the steel frame will be evaluated. Meanwhile the dataset of direct and indirect
cost in retrofitting and post-earthquake repair will be collected to implement cost-benefit measure in the selection
of seismic retrofit strategy. Year 3 focuses on extension of the developed scheme to cost calculation and loss
calculation of non-structural elements that will provide a complete strategy on the most cost-effective seismic
retrofit.

Figure 2. Year research plan

3
4