Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Kimberly Waggle Kramer / This thesis intends to act as a resource for structural engineers or architects to make informed decisions for selecting economical bay dimensions for a steel‐framed building. This thesis utilizes a parametric study to investigate how different design variables affect economical bay sizes for a typical steel‐framed building. While there are many ways to define an “economical bay”, this analysis defines an economical bay size as the bay size that uses the least steel, measured in pounds per square foot of floor area. Although other factors contribute to the overall economy of a steel bay, this analysis only considers the weight of steel. Investigated parameters include beam spacing, beam span, girder span, floor live load intensity, and composite versus non‐composite construction. Beam center‐to‐center spacing varies from four feet to 12 feet in two‐foot increments. Beam spacing varies independently from beam span. Beam spans range from 20 feet to 52 feet in four foot increments. Girder spans also range from 20 feet to 52 feet in four foot increments. Beam and girder spans vary independently of one another. Floor live loads include 50 lb/ft², 75 lb/ft², and 100 lb/ft². The effect of member construction type is also evaluated in this analysis by considering both composite and non‐composite beams and girders. This analysis finds that 20‐foot by 20‐foot bays use the least steel per square foot, while 52‐foot by 52‐foot bays use the most. Identical bays framed with girders spanning the long direction use less steel than with beams spanning the long direction. Beams contribute the majority of the steel weight in the structure, while columns contribute the least. Live load intensity produces minimal effect on the steel weight, while the use of composite construction saves 30‐40% of steel weight versus non‐composite construction.

Thesis (M.Eng.). / Written for the Dept. of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/04/12). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-84).

This thesis is divided into two distinct and independent parts. Part I focuses on the extension of the concept of Variability Response Function (VRF). The focus of research community has recently shifted from the improvement of structural models and enhancement of the performance of computational tools in a deterministic framework towards the development of tools capable of quantifying the uncertainty of parameters of the structural system and their effect on the system response in a probabilistic framework. One limitation to this direction is the inadequacy of information to fully describe the probabilistic characteristics of a structural system. In effort to bypass this barrier, VRF was introduced by Shinozuka as a tool to calculate the variability of the response of a system. VRF is a deterministic function and for the case of deterministic structural beams where the uncertain system parameters are modeled as homogeneous stochastic fields, it offers an efficient way to circumvent timely computational analyses. In this dissertation, a flexibility-based VRF for the case of statically determinate beams following an arbitrary non-linear constitutive law is proposed. A closed-form analytical expression of VRF is derived and the constrains of the mechanics approximation embedded are discussed. No series expansion is used, thus the probabilistic part is exact and not limited by any constraint on the relative magnitude of the variations of the parameters. Part II of this dissertation explores the topic of progressive collapse. The appearance of damage in structural systems (explosions, design or construction errors, aging infrastructure) is following an upward trend during the last decades, urging for measures to be taken in order to control the damage advancement within the system. There has been an organized effort to update the design codes and regulations, in order to include provisions towards the reinforcement of buildings to eliminate their susceptibility to local damage. These efforts tend to focus on improving redundancy and alternate load paths, to ensure that loss of any single component will not lead to a general structural collapse. The analysis of a damaged system is a very complicated phenomenon due to its non-linear nature. So far the engineering community has addressed the problem of progressive collapse by employing sophisticated computational finite element methods to accurately simulate an unexpected damaging event. In this framework, damage has been introduced in the model by removing key load-bearing elements of the building and conducting elaborate analyses which almost always require inelastic and loss of stability theories to be considered. The computational complexity renders this kind of analyses almost prohibitive for practicing engineers. In the direction of eliminating sophisticated and computationally expensive analyses, simple, trustworthy tools should be generated for practitioners to easily predict the mechanism of damage propagation and determine the governing collapse mode of a structure. In this environment, this thesis introduces a simple and less labor demanding analytical tool/method which can be used to determine the governing progressive collapse mechanism of steel moment frames under the scenario of a column removal. After performing plain elastic analyses, the method develops critical Euler-type ductility curves for each removal scenario by performing straightforward analytical calculations. The response of structural systems under column removals is examined in a 2D and 3D context. The main objective of Part II is to investigate the response of dierent structural systems to the event of damage introduction (in this thesis, in the form of column removals in several locations of the system) and to develop a simple analytical framework for the identification of the governing progressive collapse failure modes. Although failure may occur due to a number of reasons (shear beam-to-column connection failure, beam yielding-type mechanism, loss of stability of adjacent columns, global loss of stability of the structural system, etc), in this study focus is being placed in only two of them; The proposed method establishes critical limit state functions which are used to identify whether a specic structure will experience progressive collapse through a yielding-type beam-induced collapse mechanism or through a loss-of-stability-induced column failure collapse mechanism.

Originally published as first author's thesis. / "May 2004." "John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2010. / Mode of access: Internet. Title from PDF title page; viewed on March 19, 2010. Major professor: Graham Archer, Ph.D., P.E. "Presented to the faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree [of] Master of Science in Architecture with a specialization in Architectural Engineering." "February 2010." Includes bibliographical references (p. 73).

No description available.

This project investigates the performance of brick-veneer cold-formed steel-framed domestic structures when subjected to earthquake-induced loads. It focuses on the effects of the so-called non-structural components, namely, plasterboard lining and brick veneer cladding. An extensive testing program was conducted on a full scale one-room-house measuring 2.3m x 2.4m x 2.4m high. This house was tested at various stages of construction to assess the contribution of the various components. Different types of loading, including non-destructive swept sine wave, destructive pseudo-static cyclic racking and simulated earthquakes were employed to obtain the various characteristics of the structure. The testing program on the test house was complemented by further tests on critical components such as brick ties and plasterboard connections. Detailed analytical models were developed and verified against the experimental results. These models were then used to conduct a sensitivity analysis to study other configurations, identify critical parameters and develop design guidelines. The experimental and analytical results have shown that the plasterboard wall lining can provide lateral bracing to domestic wall frames since they effectively act as shear walls. The performance of wall lining is greatly enhanced when set corner joints, ceiling cornices and skirting boards are considered. The capacity is increased by more than three times when these extra components are taken into account. Plasterboard also exhibits high damping and energy absorption capacity which are beneficial under earthquake loading. Furthermore, the strength and stiffness contributions of plasterboard lining and strap cross braces are additive.

Thesis (M.Eng.). / Written for the Dept. of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/17). Includes bibliographical references.